The Impersonated Self
by fourleggedfish
Summary: What if Arthur gave a different answer to the disir, but no one knew about it? No warnings, caveat lector.
1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE: The Disir**

" _I would have you become the king you're destined to be."_

 _Arthur leaned upright, gaze calculating. Even so, what he actually felt was more akin to curiosity. "If I do save Mordred, all my father's work will be for nothing. Sorcery will reign once more in Camelot." He watched Merlin, intent. "Is that what you'd want?"_

 _Merlin seemed to be shaking, a subtle inability to hold still, and though he likely didn't realize it, his face – his eyes, fixed on Arthur – gave away so much. But he didn't speak._

" _Perhaps my father was wrong." Arthur was willing to grant that – he'd said as much before, fought with him over his unyielding stance on magic, his paranoia about it, his lack of discernment or justice or mercy where it was concerned. This was nothing Merlin hadn't heard before, of course. But Arthur hadn't previously stared at him as he said it, trying to fathom out this…sorcerer. This man who stood by Arthur when by rights, Merlin should hate him like all the rest seemed to do. "Perhaps the old ways aren't as evil as we thought."_

 _Across the fire, Merlin's breathing had picked up, but not in fear – not in anything so simple. He watched Arthur with the rims of his eyes reddened, a sheen over the irises. There_ was _fear there, but more of other things – a terrible hope, and despair, and a perilous, treacherous_ want _. And sadness. Because to counter that hope, something else seemed to seep in around the edges, and Arthur couldn't, for the life of him, parse it out just then, for all that Merlin's gaze never really wavered from his._

" _So what should we do? Accept magic?"_

 _Merlin was biting the inside of his cheek, agitated, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled through his nose, finally breaking eye contact for a moment. He was on the verge of tears, the giant petticoat. They weren't relieved or happy tears, though. That thing curling at the edges of the expression on his face seemed to be something else._

" _Or let Mordred die?"_

 _Merlin shook his head, sort of – it wasn't a very committed response, more a negation at being asked to choose at all. He looked down, still minutely shaking his head and holding back whatever it was he truly thought or wanted to say. The struggle fascinated Arthur, but in a terrible way. He looked at Merlin and saw a conflict that, to Arthur, was pointless. Surely the answer was obvious. Merlin was a sorcerer. Merlin was a good man. Magic had never been the problem – men were the problem. And a man's life was at stake. Merlin was not the sort of person to allow an innocent man to die for the sake of a principle – certainly not the same innocent man he'd saved once as a child._

 _Finally, some of the tension left Merlin's frame, and it was obvious that he'd come to a decision. He sank back a bit, more relaxed, and swallowed the vestiges of whatever emotion had left him in such turmoil. He took another moment to gather his thoughts though, words stuck behind downcast eyes, and then he leaned forward, swallowed several times. Nerves, likely. It had to be terrifying, Arthur thought, to keep a secret your whole life, one that could get you killed, and then one day just….tell it. To the very king who may kill you for it. Arthur nodded to encourage him. There was no better moment; the time for secrets had to be over._

" _There can be no place for magic in Camelot."_

 _Arthur didn't react at first. He'd heard the words, and the way Merlin forced the first half of them, but he couldn't quite believe it. He watched Merlin give those tiny head shakes, still denying, maybe some part of him refusing the lie he'd just told. Arthur narrowed his eyes and leaned back against his pack, still looking at Merlin, and the way Merlin had finally turned away, eyes downcast, not at ease, not pleased with himself. Just… He looked like saying that to Arthur had broken something in him. In which case, why say it?_

 _Arthur nodded to himself, eyes straying to the cave, and contemplated his choice._

* * *

 _In the morning, Arthur ordered Merlin to wait outside with the horses while he spoke to the Disir. In the afternoon, when they returned to Camelot, it was to the news that Mordred had succumbed to his wound. Arthur's initial response was rage at the betrayal of the Disir. His next was confusion, because when he looked back at Merlin, he saw only relief on the man's face. Was it relief at thinking that Arthur had refused to cede to the demands of the triple goddess, or relief that Mordred – who Merlin had never really seemed to like or trust since meeting the boy again as an adult – was dead?_

 _Arthur wasn't sure. But it gave him pause enough to reserve his anger until he could be certain that it was justified._

* * *

 **CHAPTER 1**

Arthur remembered, vividly, the day Guinevere died.

It felt surreal, still. The sun had been high. Bright. It was a beautiful day, and the water at the cauldron had been so blue that Arthur found it hard to look at. He remembered pleading with Guinevere to remember her love for him. He remembered the bright, pure light of a goddess on the water, and Merlin wearing someone else's face, dressed up like an idiot as if Arthur wouldn't notice his worn, familiar boots poking out of the bottom of that hideous dress, giving him away. He remembered his sister, and yelling, blood and a small, crippled white dragon, and Guinevere stilled in his arms. And he remembered like sounds echoing in a thick fog, or heard from underwater, Merlin's voice crying, pleading with the light on the lake to save her, just please, in the name of all that was good, please save the queen.

Even Arthur knew that it was too late, however sympathetic the formless goddess might be. Guinevere was already gone. Her body died in his arms, but his wife, his first love, had been gone for far longer than he had noticed. He should have noticed. It would have made mourning her easier, he thought, if he had known when they rescued her from the tower that she was, for all intents and purposes, already dead. Arthur had been prepared for that – he could have handled that. It was the months that followed, the false security, the misplaced trust, the knowledge of his own blindness and the disservice that it did to his queen – his own betrayal of their love and knowledge of each other, for not even noticing that it wasn't her. That was what caused his grief to linger so strong, festering. The guilt that he felt at letting her down had nothing, in the end, to do with her actual death, and everything to do with how he had missed it entirely. He had defiled her by continuing to blindly love and trust her imposter. For gods' sakes, he had been _intimate_ with her, with the perversion of her, right up until learning the truth.

They didn't bury his sister. The last Arthur saw of Morgana, the little white dragon had twisted its unnaturally angled limbs around her body, and though Merlin tried to convince him to pass it off as a mourning embrace, Arthur couldn't avoid the realization that it was probably eating her. He had no sorrow left for that, though. It seemed fitting that a predator and a betrayer should be betrayed and consumed by a predator, at the last.

Over a year had passed since that day. Arthur mourned, of course he did, and sealed the queen's chambers in a manner far too reminiscent of his father sealing Ygraine's. Merlin recovered from the head wound he sustained falling off of the path to the cauldron, though it caused some worry at first, and took a fair bit of time. Arthur recovered from the broken wrist he suffered from going down after him. They buried Guinevere near her brother and her father, on the hillside, where the sun would shine every day. It had become a pilgrim's path since then, and the entire hill was covered in flowers from the seeds that her mourning subjects spread. Arthur couldn't bring himself to go there anymore; it was too beautiful a place for a grave.

Arthur didn't think that Merlin visited her either, not since the ceremony itself. The only time Arthur really heard him speak of her was in the beginning, when Merlin tried to apologize for breaking his promise to Arthur – for failing to break Morgana's curse and restore Gwen to him. That should have been the moment when Arthur told him that he knew how hard Merlin had tried to keep his word – that he knew it was Merlin who summoned the goddess and drove the dragon away from Arthur where he crouched, refusing to weep on the shore, uncaring as the beast charged him. That it was Merlin, not some recluse lady sorcerer, who picked Excalibur up from where Arthur dropped it and drove it through Morgana from behind, so hard…so hard that a solid eight inches protruded out the other side of her. Driven by the kind of rage that can only come from grief. There was a terrible strength in grief.

But he didn't. Arthur yelled at him a bit, but not about the broken promise, and definitely not about the secret magic. In truth, he had no idea what he'd gone on about, only that eventually, he looked up to find his chambers empty, and a trail of broken crockery to show Arthur's path through the room. Merlin disappeared for a few days, and then showed up one dawn again as if nothing had happened. They went on as they always had, for the most part. Except that now, Merlin was quieter, and Arthur still didn't know why Merlin didn't trust him with the truth of his magic when it was clear that his loyalty to Camelot – to Arthur – could never be called a sham. He contradicted everything that Arthur thought he might understand about a sorcerer – he was good, and he was loyal, and he risked his life without even the slightest hope of gratitude, and he chose to be a servant. Merlin asked for nothing but that – he _asked_ for that, to be allowed to keep his station. Arthur didn't even know why Merlin was there in the first place. Arthur's Camelot was not Uther's, it had no purge and never would, but it was still hostile to magic, and Arthur knew it just as surely as he knew that Merlin would never betray him, sorcerer or no. Surely that made Merlin a traitor to his own people – to those with magic – which was mystery enough in itself, but Arthur found himself far more preoccupied with why someone of Merlin's power would consent to lower themselves to be a servant at all, than with why he had turned so far against magic that he even advised Arthur to renounce it to the Triple Goddess herself.

Arthur could not pretend to understand Merlin's motivations, but he understood _Merlin_ just fine. He was far too gregarious for a man who had no secrets, and far too simplistic for a truly simple man. Everybody liked him. He liked everybody back. Everybody looked at Merlin and thought, "That is a man I can trust with my life." And then they would make sure that they didn't let him carry anything fragile because he'd certainly trip or run into a wall and break it. But the reverse of that trust was not true; Merlin gave away nothing, and he did it with the guile of someone who has kept his secrets for so long that it no longer occurred to him not to. He _was_ secrets. He was confidences unshared. He was… alone in a way that Arthur understood. Never show anything vulnerable – never let them see the cracks or the weaknesses or the way you doubt yourself at night. Never let them see _you_ , or the things you love, or the things you believe in, or they might gain power over you, and end you. Of course Arthur understood that. He was King. A king can never be weak, which meant that he could also never be _known_.

It was second nature for Merlin to smile, bumble, grin, gripe and give the very skin off of his back if someone else needed it more. But he didn't confide. He shared something like wisdom when Arthur needed it, but he didn't do so the way other men did – by relating personal anecdotes. Everyone knew Merlin. But no one _knew_ him. It took Arthur far too long to figure that out. When he finally parsed out what Merlin was hiding, it wasn't the sorcery that shocked him. It was realizing that as far as he was able, Merlin had been telling Arthur the truth about himself all along, and Arthur had dismissed him for a fool every time. Merlin never truly lied. Dissembled, yes. Misled, disguised, diverted, omitted – he did all of those things out of self-preservation. But otherwise, he was shockingly open for a man carrying a heritage that could get him killed. And he kept using his forbidden gifts to save the lives of people who would show their gratitude for it with a pyre.

It took a certain cunning to hide in plain sight like that, right under Arthur's nose. Right under _Uther's_ , usually telling nothing but the plain truth, and yet still never seen.

It was disturbing.

It should have been terrifying.

Arthur should have wondered if Merlin's lies, his veiled truths, spelled treachery.

All Arthur wanted to do was grab him around the neck, squeeze a little bit, and then hang onto him for a while, waiting for the struggling and the squirming and the indignant (poor cover for terrified) protests to fade away. Long enough for Merlin to get it through his thick skull that Arthur _knew._ That Arthur _understood_ , and why on earth shouldn't they finally just share the burden? Just a bit, sometimes, over mulled wine at night or under a canopy of stars by a campfire after a good hunt. The hardest part of being king was that Arthur found himself surrounded by people every hour of every day, alone in a sea of flesh and words and thoughts, and fetid breath, and false obeisance, in a shiny citadel where everyone knew his name and what he did and how to speak to him, how best to use him, and everything about him except who and what _Arthur_ was. And none of those people knew what that felt like.

Merlin knew _exactly_ what that felt like.

Once he'd recategorized his manservant in his mind (loyal, stupid, insubordinate, noble, _magical_ idiot), his first unfettered reaction to the new picture of Merlin in his mind had not been anger. Neither was it fear, or betrayal, or suspicion, or anything else that a sane king should feel upon discovering a liar and technical traitor sharing his most personal spaces. It was affection, and some kind of want that touched on a dark part of Arthur that he didn't much like. Some stupid part of himself simply wanted to grab it, wrestle it down, and own it. He always had, and it made him think of maces swung in the marketplace at a mouthy, gangly boy who dared call Arthur a bully to his face, at a time when he needed to be told it most.

Arthur frowned into the fire in front of him, the sky dark outside his chamber windows and the air sweet with peat and a waft of early autumn. The mulled wine tasted warm and spicy-sweet on his tongue, a billowing heat suffused in his veins. He had no idea where Merlin had found it; Cook wouldn't normally make it until closer to midwinter. It was Arthur's favorite drink of the season, though, and he'd mentioned it just that morning at court, wistfully, in a room filled with councilors, and Merlin lurking around the edges.

Speaking of Merlin, the (in)sufferable idiot hadn't once stopped chattering, his back bent in a curl over Arthur's chainmail as he inspected it for rust and breaks, sat on the floor near the fire at Arthur's feet. It had been a long time since Merlin last babbled on about nothing, his voice a soothing background to Arthur's thoughts the way rain or wind might be. Arthur eyed the lanky frame of the man, like a rack of antlers dressed in old peasant clothes. And he thought to himself, _Yes, I want that._ A giant, blabbering, grinning coat rack who always but never told the truth, would happily go to his death for the sake of men who would never stand by him if they knew what he was, who juggled to entertain street children and wrote noble speeches and lied by omission every day, and whose once brilliant smiles no longer reached his eyes. Where on earth did such a man even come from, let alone come to him?

"Where did you learn to read?"

" – and then Thomas told him to – what?"

"Read, Merlin. Where did you learn to do it?"

Merlin started to shake his head, but the confusion appeared too much for him and he cocked his head instead. "You…want to know where I learned to read?"

"Is it that complicated a question?" Arthur frowned into his goblet, which was still mostly full, and then looked at Merlin again, all sharp angles set off by the fire lighting him from behind. "You know, I could hang hats off of your shoulder blades." That was not what he'd meant to say, surely. The wine really was very nice.

Merlin blinked. "…you don't own any hats."

Arthur squinted at him. "I own _all_ the hats. I'm the _king_ , Merlin."

"You don't even like hats."

"I don't _have_ to like hats. I'm the – "

" – king, yes, you said." Merlin paused. "Did you want me to fetch you a hat?"

Arthur glared at him for good measure. "Don't be ridiculous; I despise hats. Messy, wooly things." He waved the whole notion off with his goblet, which splattered around a bit, and then sipped at his wine some more. Or gulped. He tried to sip, really, but he came near to choking on it so he must have miscalculated. The sweetness of it carried just the right amount of heat to balance the sharpness of clove and cinnamon, and Arthur twisted his head around to lick the spatter from his thumb. When he looked up, he found Merlin staring, his eyes blank but his cheeks flushed.

Arthur cocked his head at him. Merlin shook himself and went back to the chainmail, sans blathering. Wine forgotten in his hand, Arthur stared at the knob of a vertebra at the base of Merlin's neck long enough that it, too, flushed pink.

Interesting. "Do you remember when you juggled?"

"Oh, not that again." Merlins scrubbed the back of his hand over his forehead, a cleaning rag dangling from his fingers.

"You were…" He twiddled his fingers a bit, expression distant. "…dexterous. Not like you. Clumsy."

"I told you, I have _many_ talents, you're just not looking."

"Yes." It must have been magic juggling, the cheat. Arthur felt his mouth smear – he must be smiling. Good. Smiling was good. He set his goblet aside and struggled upright from his sprawl in the chair. "I have decided to look." He eyed Merlin's face, and then the rest of him for good measure. He twiddled his fingers, possibly too close to Merlin's face if the way he flinched back was anything to go by. "I would like to know what other sorts of talented things you might be able to do."

Merlin's mouth did something complicated and then his eyes went wide over a bit of slack jaw before it really occurred to Arthur how suggestive that sounded, and that he had purred a little too much.

"Oh god, no. No, sorry." Arthur shoved himself back again as Merlin balked, a proper balk at that, and let the chair catch him again when he couldn't quite stand as intended. "No, that was entirely inappropriate." He dug his palms into his eye sockets.

"It's alright," Merlin offered, but he sounded too cautious now.

"God, just, the wine," Arthur tried to explain. He could feel it thumping all of a sudden in his ear drums, a cadence to match the beat of his heart. "I don't know what came over me."

Merlin was on his feet when Arthur looked up again, chainmail and armor discarded on the floor. "It's alright. Come on." He gripped at Arthur's bicep and tugged. "Let's get you to bed."

"I drank too much. How did I drink too much?"

"It wasn't watered down as much as usual," Merlin said. "I know you like the taste better that way."

Arthur nodded, somehow on his feet and pointed at his empty bed with Merlin pressing lightly between his shoulder blades. God, he missed Guinevere, the ache more fierce tonight than it had been for the past year. He bumped into the bed and dropped his hands to sit. At least he felt more miserable over what he'd said to Merlin than over his absent wife, for once. He looked up when Merlin tugged at his tunic, and Merlin returned his gaze in only a flicker, wary, or maybe just contemplative, before focusing on the laces again at Arthur's throat. Just in case it was the former, Arthur said, "Don't be offended. I didn't mean it like that. I wouldn't. You're a servant, and I wouldn't make you do that. It's not right."

Merlin raised a brow, a bit like Gaius in that affect, and offered, his voice hesitant, "I'm not offended. I would, though. If it… If you wanted. I wouldn't mind, if you did mean it."

"What?"

"I mean, it's fine," Merlin backpedaled, one hand waving off while the other tugged the last of the knot out and loosened the tunic. "If you just need, you know…something. If you're lonely, I mean, or just cold, or whatever. With Gwen gone, I mean, you might…have needs, or just…" He flapped his hand, which really conveyed nothing as far as clarity went. "And I know some of the servants do that, sometimes. I wouldn't mind if you wanted a hand or something – "

Arthur was moving before he'd really registered the intent to do so in his wine-addled mind. Merlin squawked and it took a moment for Arthur realize that he'd made that noise upon Arthur slamming his back into the wall, one hand fisted in Merlin's collar and neckerchief, pulling it tight up against his throat. "Don't you ever – _ever_ – "

"Arthur!" Merlin grabbed at his wrist to try and pry it off. "I won't – I'm sorry – I just thought it might – "

"What, _help_?! You are never to imply that you can take Guinevere's place!"

"I wasn't – !"

"That's not your place! It's _never_ your place! You _never_ – "

"Arthur, please…"

Arthur dropped his hand as if scalded and breathed heavily, stumbling back a step as he watched Merlin cough and tug his neckerchief off to one side to better catch his breath. When he reached to help, Merlin skittered away without showing Arthur his back, his hand held up in that strange warding gesture that Arthur had seen him make whenever they were under attack. At a loss, Arthur retreated and sank back down onto his mattress, trembling. He was more drunk than he'd thought, and his temper, familiar as it was, had come just as unexpectedly as it had gone. He recognized Uther in that. It made him feel slightly sick.

Merlin lowered his hand and straightened, and his face hardened in anger. "For the record, _sire_ , you are not the only one who misses her."

"I know that. Merlin – "

"No." Merlin strode to the cupboard, drew out Arthur's night clothes, and flung them across the room. They smacked Arthur in the face and fell into his lap, followed by Merlin appearing in front of him with alarming stealth to all but rip Arthur's arms off along with his tunic. "And in case you forgot, she was _my_ friend first. If you really think I would disrespect her by trying to _take her place_ , then you are an absolute cabbage head."

Arthur allowed the manhandling because really, Merlin probably deserved to get some of his own back, and he didn't like hearing the hitch and crack in Merlin's voice as he spoke back. Arthur waited for Merlin to turn away with his dirty tunic and then offered, "I don't want you whoring yourself out. That's all."

Merlin paused, and the very silence was murderous; Arthur didn't need to look at his face to know as much. "Whoring myself," he echoed, his voice deceptively flat.

"I mean, you're a servant, Merlin." He should probably stop trying to explain himself, since the words weren't coming out right at all. "And you shouldn't even be a servant, really, much less – " He didn't get a chance to finish that, for which he was perversely thankful, as Merlin chose that moment to try to suffocate him with his sleeping tunic. Once it was on all of the way, and Merlin had tugged his suspiciously heavy arms through the right holes, Arthur added, "Because of your birth. It's really not proper."

Merlin's face did something blank, and Arthur blinked at it, trying to figure it out. "You mean because of my parentage." Flat.

Arthur nodded. "Exactly! See? You understand." At least they could have that out in the open, finally.

"So, since I'm a fatherless bastard, I'm not good enough to be a whore, much less your servant."

Arthur's brow creased. "No, because your father – "

"Will there be anything more, sire?"

– _was a noble._ Had to be, really. Why else would a peasant know how to read? And lords should not be servants. And dragons had lords – some kind of lord – because Merlin told the white dragon off for trying to attack them, and it listened, and something… Arthur shut his eyes for a moment and knuckled his forehead. He was going to have a horrible headache in the morning. "No – look, Merlin, I know that – " The click of the door interrupted him and he looked up, only to find the space before him lacking in manservants. For good measure, he scanned the rest of the room as well to confirm that yes, he was alone. "Dammit." He was too drunk for this.

It was too much trouble just then to find a way under his blankets, and he was wearing riding trousers still, and he was the damn king, and why was everything so difficult all of a sudden? Stupid secret magical lord manservant. Arthur flopped back and let his body just sink into the mattress. Good enough. He could berate himself for his drunken idiocy in the morning.

* * *

" _Merlin. Merlin! Wake up." Arthur flailed a foot out and tried to kick at him but missed. He could see Gwen lying on the path above them. "Merlin…"_

 _He was free suddenly, sword bent, hilt scuffed from being used as a lever, arm throbbing and likely broken. He shook Merlin's limp form, blood along his hairline, and disentangled him from the multitude of packs. He'd made Merlin bring them all, but why? They didn't need everything. Petty – Arthur was being petty to make him carry them all like a pack mule, and now he wasn't moving. "Wake up, wake up, wake up – "_

* * *

The shush of the curtains woke Arthur, followed by a stab of sunlight that he could have done without. He growled something inquisitive that sounded like, "Mrrrrln."

"Good morning, sire."

Arthur groaned. He really couldn't stand proper-servant Merlin. "Why must you do that?" Something needed to be done; he couldn't deal with Merlin being all…servant-y.

Merlin paused in arranging breakfast, then apparently deemed that rhetorical and went back to placing cutlery. The tray only held enough food for one. Arthur was convinced that Merlin previously only ate enough because he stole extras from Arthur's plate. He would need to have words with the kitchen staff about portion size going forward. It had been months since Merlin last ate with him. Well… _with_ being a relative thing when one of the participants was consensually stealing the other's food.

"Breakfast is served." He approached Arthur and held out a bottle of foul green-brown sludge. "Hangover remedy. Gaius made it fresh this morning."

"Ugh." Arthur held his hand out for it without bothering to sit up. "Cheers."

"Down in one," Merlin echoed absently. Habit. He fussed with the breakfast service some more, poured a goblet of water, and then moved away to start tidying.

For lack of anything better to do, Arthur forced down the hangover remedy, gagged for a moment, then stumbled over to his chair and spent some time staring blankly at the food arranged neatly on a trencher. Clearly, no one had picked it over or filched any sausages from it, other than the necessary nibbles to test for poisons. It was hateful. "I can't eat this." Arthur thumped his elbow onto the table and smashed his face into his palm for good measure. And if Merlin was the one doing the poison-testing again, Arthur was going to throttle him. There were people for that – other people. People Arthur needed less. And of course, when he put it that way, it was a horrid thing to think. He smooshed his face a bit harder against his hand and dug his fingers in around the thumping places in his head.

"Can I get you something else, sire? There's probably pudding, or eggs and porridge."

"No…no food. You eat it." Arthur blinked his eyes open wide to peer through the webs of his fingers. The plate slid out from in front of him, and the whole situation made him want to shout. "Merlin, about last night."

"Nothing to worry about, sire." Merlin took the plate to the door and placed it on a side table. He pointedly did not eat it himself. "I shouldn't have kept your cup topped off – you didn't realize how much you drank."

"Right." Arthur gave him the side eye and hoped that Gaius's foul concoction kicked in soon. "Did I hit you?" He didn't think he did, but it was fuzzy, and he could recall thinking, at one point, that Merlin might use his magic to keep Arthur away from him.

"No, sire." He was picking up clothes now and tossing them into the laundry basket, seemingly pointed in how he kept his back turned. "Nothing but a little friendly asphyxiation."

"What? Merlin!" Arthur stumbled to his feet and tried not to notice how Merlin's eyes darted back and forth for a moment the way Arthur's might when under attack. He would have to think about that at some point, why Merlin seemed to think him a threat nowadays – why he always mapped the rooms he entered and checked for escape routes. But for the time being, Arthur reached out and managed to grab at the stupid neckerchief rag thing that Merlin was wearing, in spite of Merlin's flinching back, which seemed involuntary. Arthur froze at the sight of purple marks – a clear thumb on one side and three fingers blurred together on the other. "Merlin," he breathed. He wondered if he sounded or looked as horrified as he felt.

Merlin stepped back, his expression more ambiguous than impassive while the action itself could be nothing but calculated. Arthur's fingers slipped from the fabric of the neckerchief, and he let his hand fall slowly back to his side. After meeting Arthur's gaze for slightly longer than was comfortable, Merlin turned away and resumed picking up Arthur's mess from the night before, silent.

Arthur watched him for long enough to realize two things. First, that Merlin wasn't going to offer anything more, and second, that the mess wasn't really getting any better; Merlin was just moving it around in some sort of nervous need not to stand still or look at Arthur. Eventually, he passed close enough for Arthur to snag an elbow and use the momentum to propel Merlin around to face him. Rather than submit to a conversation, Merlin hunched up the shoulder nearest Arthur's hand, and simply waited, unmoving, with his eyes downcast. The Good Servant, as it were. On anyone else, it would be perfectly acceptable – even proper. On Merlin, it was just wrong.

Arthur shook his head at the lowered lashes and the thin line of Merlin's mouth, but he maintained his grip, which was more restraint than it should have been. Merlin could have been on the verge of being dragged to the cells by it, to judge by the stiffness of his limbs and the care with which he held his arm perfectly still in Arthur's hand, as if not to offer resistance that might be taken the wrong way by an overzealous guard. Merlin was passive. Merlin should never be passive.

"Tell me what happened last night."

Merlin twitched his chin to one side, but his eyes remained elsewhere. "You were drunk, sire. I put you to bed."

"That doesn't explain why I tried to choke you."

Merlin flinched. It was subtle, but there.

"Look." Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment to gather his thoughts, and then tried for soothing. "Obviously, something else happened. You don't need to spare my pride." He paused, then added, "It's not like to you pass on an opportunity to tell me I've done something wrong. You should be rubbing it my face."

"I apologize if I fail to live up to my lord's standards."

Arthur blinked a few times, more shocked than anything else. A wave of anger followed, unexpected in its intensity, and far beyond Arthur's ability to control in that moment. "What the _hell_ is wrong with you?! This isn't _you_! You don't _do_ this!"

He watched Merlin angling away, elbow still caught fast, lashes lowered so that Arthur couldn't see his eyes, as if in anticipation of a blow. Perhaps it was the resignation that did it – Merlin would have let him. Something in his posture screamed that Arthur could hit if he wanted, and Merlin wouldn't necessarily stop him.

Arthur released him and shoved them apart from each other as if one of them had the plague. His fury dispersed like smoke. "Merlin, I don't want this from you." It was perhaps the most honest thing he could have said, and yet still, it sounded wrong – could be taken so wrong. "You don't grovel. You don't keep silent. You're of _no use_ to me like this." When Merlin still didn't say anything, Arthur sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose before turning away. "Look, just…pull yourself together. I need a servant I can rely on." Which was unfair, since no one he had ever met was more reliable, if he discounted actual cleanliness, punctuality and coordination.

Hesitant, Merlin simply asked, "Will you be joining the knights for practice this morning, sire?"

Arthur straightened up, facing the window. For no reason he could really pinpoint – though he suspected it was the _sire_ that did it – he reached back, hooked Merlin by the scruff, pulled him around and squished him a bit.

Merlin went stiff and still in his grasp. "Sire – Arthur?"

"Just hold still." Arthur manhandled him into a more comfortable position, and then resumed the squishing. He had no idea how long these things were supposed to last, but Merlin wasn't trying to get away, so that had to be a good sign, right? Once he deemed a sufficient duration had passed, and before things could get any more awkward, Arthur patted Merlin's shoulder blades – really too sharp – and then nudged him back.

Merlin stumbled a bit, righted himself, and then stared. "Did you just hug me?"

Arthur shrugged and turned away toward the changing screen. "Looked like you needed it."

"Right." A shuffle of soft-soled shoes betrayed Merlin fidgeting but otherwise not moving away. "Is that an apology or something? Because that was hardly adequate as far as hugs go."

"Surely there's some etiquette about insulting the way a king bestows his embraces."

Silence.

"Look, if it was that horrible, then just forget about it." Arthur came out from behind the screen and put his hands on his hips. When Merlin merely stared at him a bit, he sighed and prompted, "Clothes? You know, those things in the wardrobe that you never fold correctly?"

"Oh." Merlin looked at the wardrobe, then shook himself as if from a stupor. "Yes. Clothes."

Arthur rolled his eyes and went back behind the screen. "Today, Merlin."

"Don't get your britches in a twist; I'm getting them."

"Get yourself something more suitable too; I don't want to listen to you complaining that I've ruined your only pair of trousers or some other ridiculous thing. You're sparing with me today."

"What?! No. No, I'm not. Why would you say that?"

With his head ducked over the wash basin, Arthur smiled. But he hadn't forgotten that he owed far more of an apology than one awkward hug and some banter could satisfy. And he wanted to know what happened last night so that whatever apology was due, he could be certain of making proper redress. Maybe bashing Merlin around the training ground for a while would make him more pliable.

* * *

" _Mer_ lin!"

Merlin rolled – flailed? – underneath the pile of armor, shield and sword that Arthur had shoved him into earlier that morning.

Arthur sighed at the clanking pile of manservant spilled over the practice field. "Honestly, it's like you're not even trying here. Get up."

"I _am_ trying!"

"You're embarrassing yourself."

A flare of blue peeked out from one eyehole of the battered old helm crammed over Merlin's head. It was a surprisingly effective glare for being singular, and mostly hidden. "If you're so keen for a sparing partner, why don't you ask one of them?!"

Arthur glanced up at the collection of knights trying not to be noticed on the other side of the field. He might need to go a bit easier on them for a while; they were cringing again whenever he stepped onto the field. Rather than addressing anything in that vein, Arthur replied, "They already know how to defend themselves. You, on the other hand…" He regarded his heap of manservant with a sad frown. "I despair of you sometimes, Merlin. It's a miracle you haven't been killed already."

Merlin struggled and waved his armor-clad limbs around well enough that he managed to flop into a new position. "Maybe you just need to stop getting into so much trouble. Honestly, you can hardly walk through the market without getting attacked or enchanted, and then I have to – OW!"

"Stop squirming." Arthur hauled up on a pauldron until he'd dragged Merlin upright by it. They eyed each other, Arthur critical and Merlin wary. "I think you've had enough for today; you'll be useless at your chores later. Come on." He slapped Merlin's metal-clad arm and Merlin staggered again. "Just try not to fall over again."

"Easy for you to say," Merlin muttered. "Do you know how much all of this weighs?" He flapped his gauntlet at his own chest.

"Yes," Arthur replied. Because he did – he was wearing even more of it than Merlin. "Idiot."

"Well, do you know how much _I_ weigh?" Merlin demanded as they made their way toward the armory.

Arthur gave him an incredulous look, his nose wrinkling on one side. "Why on earth would I need to know that?"

Without missing a beat (in the conversation, that is – his feet were literally _everywhere_ ), Merlin replied, "Because then you would realize that I can't stand up in all of this because it weighs _as much as I do_." He huffed, and then added, "Prat!"

"Does it?" Arthur scrutinized the skinny frame of his manservant – that was right: antlers for legs, and a hat rack up top. "Well. That just means you need to train harder. Put some muscles on those bones."

Merlin jammed his shoulder at the armory door until it opened for him, and Arthur suppressed the urge to either smirk at the spectacle of Merlin outdone by a door, or yell at him for going through before his king. "I have muscles," he muttered. "I have plenty of muscles – I have to carry practically everything you own over the course of a day."

"Stop exaggerating." Arthur grabbed his shoulder again when Merlin went to claw at the straps holding the armor in place. "The only thing your muscles are any good for is folding laundry, carrying plants and holding quills. So basically useless."

"What, because I'm bad with a sword, I'm not good for anything else?"

"Sir Hector is bad with a sword," Arthur said. " _You_ are worse than a kitchen maid with a stick."

Merlin squinted at him but remained silent.

"See? Even you recognize it." Technically, Merlin should be taking Arthur's armor off first and then fending for himself on his own gear, but if Arthur insisted on propriety, neither of them would ever get out of their armor. And Merlin could barely move in his. "How did you even get this twisted like – Merlin, I put this on you myself! How do you manage these things?"

Merlin bared his teeth. It might have been a smile of some sort; Arthur rather thought he looked like a spitting kitten. "Maybe you did it wrong."

Arthur scoffed. "I've been putting on armor since before I could walk." He wasn't smiling though; he could feel the edges of his mouth pulling down in thought. He had a hazy recollection of the previous night, of Merlin polishing armor by the fire, talking about hats. Arthur had been trying to bring up the nobility thing. Or the magic, or both, but instead, they ended up talking about…hat racks? Maybe now was as good a time as any to try having that conversation again. "Where did you learn to write?"

Whatever Merlin had been expecting, it clearly wasn't that. He eyed Arthur, which had the side benefit of him holding still enough that Arthur finally untwisted the leather straps cutting up under Merlin's right arm and got it unbuckled. "That's what you focus on? Are you serious? How did _you_ learn to write? Maybe just think about that and extrapolate."

"Give me _some_ credit, Merlin. I know where you grew up; there wasn't a parchment in sight. And you certainly never had tutors in Ealdor."

Merlin's eyes shuttered and cut to the side, and there – that was the look Arthur was starting to notice more and more. Fear. Not the kind that knights displayed in battle, or that Arthur had seen even on Merlin's face when a situation went pear-shaped. It was something else. Deeper. A fundamental thing, like he didn't even need to think in order to feel it, and the feeling of it was so familiar that he took no notice of it at all. Like breathing. "I dunno. I suppose I picked it up from Gaius."

Arthur jerked unnecessarily hard at the back strap and ignored Merlin's faint grunt. "No one just _picks up_ writing. Come on – who taught you? It couldn't have been Gaius – you were reading his recipes practically since you got here. No one learns that fast."

"…Arthur…"

"Your mother can write too. She sent the missive to Gaius asking for your apprenticeship. Is she the one who taught you?"

"Sure. Right. My mother taught me."

"And how did she learn?"

They both paused, Merlin in his holding still and Arthur in his fruitless tugging of buckles.

After a moment, Arthur took a preparatory breath. He could feel it in the air, that subtle taste of all-or-nothing. He couldn't leave this conversation now. It needed to be seen through. "Merlin, even I realize how unusual it is for a peasant to be literate. You write my speeches, for gods' sake – I know how eloquent you are. And you don't even do it in the common tongue half the time. You've obviously had a nobleman's education."

Merlin fumbled his feet a bit and Arthur was struck with the impression that Merlin was trying to give himself space to flee. He shook his head a bit as if to clear it, or obscure his intention, but that nebulous fear was still there.

It rankled. How could Merlin seriously stand there and deny what was obvious? "You speak more languages than I do, idiot. Latin, Greek, Nordic, Gaius's old dusty pictograph things – you even talk to the traders from across the south sea, and I don't even know what language that is! Do you speak the Gauls' tongue too? The Saxons'? Merlin, there are lords and kings less educated than you. You're an idiot, but you're not stupid."

They stared at each other for a while, and Merlin seemed to be trying to make himself smaller. He'd lost the usual inch of height that he had on Arthur. "It's like you said – I never had tutors. We didn't…have books. I just…"

Arthur gave him a dubious look. "'Picked it up'?" he scoffed. Then he turned pensive. " _Are_ you a noble?"

Merlin started, and squeaked, "What?"

"Well, it would explain some things," Arthur mused. He studied Merlin's face carefully, and then examined the rest of his closed-off body language. "I'm not…unaware of what my father did during the purge, you know. Entire noble houses ceased to exist because their bloodlines carried magic. Or not. Some of them just weren't eager enough to eliminate magic, I suppose. Or spoke out openly. Some did escape. My father used to speak of how he made raids all the way into Cenred's kingdom to chase them down, and Ealdor is just barely over the border. He would have been there at least once. You never speak of your father, and…well. I can only imagine he's dead."

Merlin winced.

Careful to remain neutral, Arthur nodded in acknowledgement, but he knew the likely conclusion of that thought – that Merlin's father was dead because of Arthur's, directly or not. "Your mother appealed to Camelot for aid. I know what reasons she gave, and I'll allow that it made some sense, but there's the awkward fact that my father wasn't surprised by it, even though it was entirely inappropriate to ask a king not-your-own for military aid, and she was familiar with the habits of our court. She's Gaius's relation, and she's not native to Ealdor, is she? She's surprisingly well spoken for a peasant, and she stood tall before a king – it was respectful and proper, but it wasn't the way peasants scrape. She knew her manners better. And when we stayed in her house, she didn't defer to me the way servants or peasants do – she deferred to me the way a noblewoman would to a prince. She had no shame for her poverty, made no effort to apologize for it or make up for it – she was proud. And then there's her accent…it's not of Essetir. Yours is, but you were raised there, so that makes sense. But Hunith…she came from Camelot. Didn't she?"

Merlin cut his gaze sharply to the door, but Arthur still had hold of him by the strap of a rerebrace. His nostrils flared and he shot a wild-eyed look at Arthur's face before twitching his head in the opposite direction.

Evidence seemed to bring itself into formation like a well drilled battalion. "You're a rubbish servant." Normally, that would earn him a squawk of indignation, but Merlin merely folded his shoulders a bit smaller. "Like you never learned your place. Because why would you, if you're not really a peasant?" He shook his head as yet more of Merlin's oddities slotted into place in this new tapestry. "You understand nobility. You have the sense of honor that a knight would have – responsibility for your actions, for the actions and wellbeing of those beneath you, a sense of the greater good. You counsel _me_ on that daily, it seems." Arthur tried to catch Merlin's gaze, but Merlin was biting his lip and staring with wide, panicked eyes at some spot of nothing in the middle of the armory. "You're impertinent…for a servant. It wouldn't be so for a noble. You demand. You act entitled, even if it's polite when you do it. You speak your mind like you never learned not to. You speak to your betters like equals. You always look shocked when someone reminds you that you're _not_ their equal. That you're _just_ a servant." Very softly, lest he spook Merlin like a horse, Arthur added, "You have magic. Not just tricks and incants like sorcery. You have the kind a child is born with. The kind my father would have…would have drowned you for, in the purge. Had he found you. It's in your blood."

"Stop." It was only a shiver of a word, but it was enough. Merlin seemed unable to control his quickening breaths, or the trembling that ran through his arm where the backs of Arthur's knuckles rested, caught in the leather strap he'd been trying to undo just a few moments ago.

Arthur swayed a fraction back, concerned by the way Merlin couldn't seem to still himself, or look at Arthur, or control his breathing. "Merlin, breathe. It's alright," he murmured. "I'm not threatening you. It's not a threat."

Merlin shook his head in short, sharp jerks that increased in violence until he all but exploded out of Arthur's grasp. The fear tasted sharp in the air all around them, and Arthur held his hands out, palms facing Merlin. He tried not to be obvious about blocking the path to the door, but Merlin was like prey in that room, and his nostrils flared the moment Arthur shifted. The air turned acrid and for a moment. Arthur felt hairs raise along his arms and the back of his neck, a static tingling of what could only be magic congealing in a small space.

Arthur shook his head and fought his own knee-jerk reaction. He felt frantic at the charge in the air, like lightening struck into puddles and the smell of it like the air might crackle and burn. "Merlin, calm down." He hazarded a step closer and Merlin tripped back, his mouth grim and pressed into a thin line, but his throat working as if he might either swallow or choke. "Listen to me, Merlin. You need to breathe, and calm down, and listen to me. Just listen. Can you do that?" Arthur had shuffled back far enough that he could bar the door if he wanted to without taking his eyes from Merlin's shaking form on the other side of the room. He knew, he _knew_ how bad that would look, but worse would be having some other knight or squire or servant walk in when Merlin appeared so close to an outright panic. Arthur felt as if his hair were standing on end. He could only imagine what Merlin might do – unconsciously, accidentally – if someone startled him by walking in. If he felt cornered or exposed.

Slowly, so that Merlin could see every movement clearly, Arthur reached back and to the right, and pulled the bar into place across the door. Arthur braced himself for all manner of reactions – flying swords, a storm, Merlin attacking him with his magic or even with his body, fire or lack of air or darkness or pressure or pain or –

But none of it came. After a tense series of heartbeats and held breath, Arthur felt the tension bleed out of the air, and the unpleasant tang of magic, like metal, faded from his nostrils. Across the room, Merlin stumbled back into a pillar and then folded like a paper doll with a short, sheer inhalation like a distant crack of ice sheets on a frozen lake. Armor and plate clanked and caught, scraping together at the joints as he hunched down into the grasp of his own arms folded around his torso and choked, " _Please_ don't burn me."

Arthur blinked, and his stomach felt carved out for one awful, stretched moment. It hadn't occurred to him, honestly. Yes, he'd thought about _that_ – a small horror in the back of his mind at the thought of Merlin chained in cold iron to a stake in the courtyard and set alight for the crime of being too kind, too noble not to use his magic to save someone, even if it meant his death. But he'd never actually thought that Merlin would _fear_ that. He'd thought…. What had he thought? That Merlin didn't care? That since he'd come to Camelot, knowing the threat that hung over him like a Damocles sword, that he wasn't afraid of it? Of course he was afraid, Arthur thought. Only a monster wouldn't be, and whatever magic he may have done behind Arthur's back, behind Uther's – whatever atrocities he may have committed in his fumbling to do what was right – Merlin was not a monster.

Merlin shuddered in on himself, visibly making an effort toward calm where he knelt, a miserable pile of armor and bone. It was grotesque, all of a sudden. Not like gore and horror, but grotesque as in unnatural and twisted and _wrong_. Merlin looked so wrong over there propped alone against the pillar, small and shaking – wrong to be covered in armor he clearly couldn't manage and probably, if Arthur were being honest, didn't even need. Wrong because Arthur was no threat to a warlock – and that was what Merlin had to be. The subtle difference between warlock and sorcerer in Sir Geoffrey's books had not been lost on Arthur. Merlin was magic by blood, not choice. He didn't make potions and carve talismans and huddle over cauldrons at the full moon, even though he could. The point was that he didn't need to; he didn't need some outside draw on magic to obtain it. As far as Arthur could tell, Merlin didn't even need to speak his magic. Warlock. And really, what could Arthur possibly do to him unless Merlin let him?

And that was the crux, wasn't it. _Let_. Merlin _would_ let him. Merlin would _let_ him do anything. Hit him, hurt him…burn him if he wanted to. Merlin had given Arthur all of himself – he'd stated as much out loud just often enough that it stuck in Arthur's mind as some curious, awful truth. Everything that Merlin is…is Arthur's. Merlin's life whether Arthur wanted it or not. Merlin's death, if Arthur asked it of him.

Arthur was not necessarily a kind man. He knew that about himself. He had bullied and he had used, he had condemned, and hurled cruelty at those beneath him, and he had killed. He had killed _innocents_ , actively and passively, by his own sword or by simply standing aside for another's. Arthur did know that, and he knew how it looked. It hadn't really struck him though, until that moment, that Merlin had watched him do these things. Be that man. Merlin, a warlock, had watched Arthur maim and kill men, women…children…for nothing more than having magic, or not having magic, or being different and standing accused. Merlin had watched their heads fall and their bodies burn for a crime of magic, true or not. Magic like what Merlin had. Arthur had killed people, some of them good people, for healing and growing crops and purifying water, same as for attacking Camelot or using magic to harm. And Merlin had watched him at it. Merlin had even stood at Arthur's side for some of it. What must that kind of thing take out of a man? Merlin wasn't evil – he wasn't duplicitous or cruel, no matter how many lies he used to safeguard his life at Arthur's hands – he was a good man. He was kind. And he stood beside Arthur, and Arthur was _not_.

Arthur took care to set his sword aside and remove the bulk of his armor before he approached Merlin, a whisper of chainmail swinging against his legs in the shadowed room. Merlin had found a rhythm to breathe by, finally, his ribcage heaving with it, and he had calmed, but he remained curled down into his own arms on the floor, his head hanging limp on his neck, air rasping still in his throat, and he didn't look up when Arthur's boots came to rest beneath his nose. He looked…defeated. He looked small. And it was _grotesque_.

"No one is going to burn you," Arthur told him, and his own voice sounded soft and warm, and a bit broken around the edges. "I won't burn you." It seemed important to add that qualification, because clearly, Merlin didn't know that already – that Arthur would never put him in the fire. That if he had to take that offered death from Merlin, he wouldn't make a torture of it like that.

A thin wisp of air curled out from Merlin's mouth, and with it a whispered, "You should."

"You're an idiot," Arthur replied, but there was no bite to it. He sank down until he could take hold of the bits of armor still strapped across Merlin's thin frame. His knees dug into the cold stone near enough to Merlin's that Arthur could feel the heat from them. "Come on, now. Let's get you out of this." He tugged until Merlin loosened his arms enough to allow Arthur to slip off the padded shoulder guards, and then vambraces and wrist guards.

Some gentle prodding had Merlin sitting up, and then the breast plate was off as well, and Merlin had to make the actual effort of refusing to look at Arthur right in front of him. "I didn't ask for this," Merlin said, voice small and unsteady. He was just a crumple in front of Arthur, really, like a wadded-up piece of parchment or a discarded, dirty dish rag. "I didn't ask for any of this."

"We never really ask for what we're given." Arthur reached for the clasps of the fauld, his arms impersonal where they circled Merlin, for all that the act of it seemed intimate. Merlin sniffed to clear the congestion in his nose and Arthur made quick work of folding his fingers beneath the armor, against the cloth of trousers covering Merlin's waist, and the sharp jut of a hipbone, before pulling the metal away.

It was a curious thing, divesting someone of the trappings of war. On the surface, such a simple act, but on review, it was a stripping. It seemed intimate and strangely violent, to peel away the protection and confront the soft flesh beneath. Like a violation. One that Merlin allowed him to commit, and afterward, thanked him for.

Briefly, Arthur kept pressing at Merlin's arms and chest with his hands, as if there were still armor to take off, because in a way, there was; Merlin had gone armored ever since he stepped foot in Camelot. The weight of it had bent him underneath it. Eventually, Arthur's palm came to rest over the knob at the base of Merlin's neck, and Arthur kneaded at it where he knew that it must hurt just now, tense and stiff as it was. Merlin shivered, his body a taut bowstring of exhaustion, as if he were cold. It was just shock, Arthur knew – the dull rush of nothing that followed the wake of battle, a sap on even the strongest of men.

The words a mere breath, Merlin told him, "I'm sorry." And then he repeated it with a hitch and a stronger tremble, and Arthur wondered what on earth Merlin thought he had to be so sorry for. A lie alone couldn't do this to a man.

"I know," Arthur told him, just to stop any further litany of it, because Arthur did know that he was sorry, even if he wasn't sure what for. And then because it really was such a silly thing to have caused all of this, Arthur asked again, "How did you learn to write?"

Merlin twined his fingers together in his lap and seemed not to notice Arthur's fingers dug into the back of his neck. Maybe it was grounding. "I'm not a noble."

Debatable, Arthur thought. But he let it go.

"I just…picked it up. I didn't mean to…I mean, I didn't notice…the languages were all different."

Arthur shook his head, because the idea that Merlin would write Arthur's speeches in a rotating collection of Briton, Latin and who knew what other languages, and not _realize_ it? It was ridiculous. That he'd pick up a book, any book, and not be hampered by the tongue it was written in, and not _notice_ …? "Gaius didn't ever mention it? His herb catalogues, his potion books… It never struck him as odd that he didn't need to teach you to read them?"

Merlin shrugged, and his eyelashes fanned out along the rim of his cheek as he blinked, long and sluggish. Maybe he'd told Gaius the same thing, and unlike Arthur, Gaius hadn't pressed the subject. Maybe it wasn't as strange a thing as Arthur thought. Maybe it had to do with magic, or maybe Gaius hadn't understood and thought that Merlin had received tutoring after all. The boy had been sent specifically to be a physician's apprentice, after all; Gaius may not have realized that Merlin hadn't prepared for that role – hadn't studied for it. "Sorry," Merlin said yet again.

"Stop apologizing." Arthur shifted his hand to scrub at the sweat damp hair of Merlin's head and then let him go and leaned back. "We need to talk about this. I need to understand. But not now. I think… I think we've both had enough for one day."

Merlin nodded. He looked done in.

"Take some time to clean yourself up, and then tend me for the evening," Arthur said. "I need to think for a while."

Again, Merlin nodded. "You need to figure out what to do with me."

Arthur cocked his head.

"I won't run," Merlin promised softly.

Arthur shook his head. "Of course not. Merlin, I'm not planning to punish you."

This should not have been such a confusing statement. Merlin blinked stupidly at the stone tiles beneath his knees, fingers fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves like a nervous tick, and twitched his head to one side as if trying to jolt the words about in his ears. Eventually, he weaved his head upright on his neck and gave Arthur a dull look. He looked drunk, or maybe just exhausted.

Either way, he didn't appear in full possession of his faculties, and that worried Arthur. He felt his brows draw inward of their own accord, and reached out to cup Merlin's face in one hand. "Merlin? Are you listening to me?"

Merlin's eyelids seemed to grow heavy, his head tipping against Arthur's hand as if he couldn't quite hold it up anymore, and oh – oh, no. Arthur knew what this was – he'd seen it once before. In the mountains, at night, halfway back to Camelot with his queen's beloved body in a crude stretcher they were pulling behind them, killed by her own mangled heart. Arthur had thought that the magic was responsible – that whatever had been inside of Guinevere, whatever force had refused to loose her – had turned on Merlin. The idiot had tried to stop it ravaging her – he'd called a goddess and then fought the malignancy that Morgana had twined into Gwen's soul. Arthur had seen it creep like tendrils up the so-called Dolma's arms before whatever deity summoned on the lake intervened. It hadn't happened since, the fit. But Arthur remembered it so vividly – the clench of teeth, the rolling white of Merlin's eyes, the unnatural arch of his neck and spine as he seized, and Arthur, barely functional in his grief, doing all he could just to keep Merlin from hurting himself or smashing his own skull against the rocks yet again. He couldn't stomach the thought of losing yet another person he cared about.

Arthur grabbed and managed to yank Merlin around and partly down onto his side before the rigidity set in. There was a moment of struggle when Merlin seemed to think that he was being attacked, and then he let out a harsh, strangled grunt as his head arched back to thump against Arthur's chest. His fingernails dug into Arthur's forearm, thankfully cushioned by the gambeson that he had yet to take off. "Alright – I've got you." Arthur fought a moment to keep him in place without hurting him. More for himself than Merlin, who likely wouldn't recall this anymore than he'd recalled the last one, he repeated, "It's alright," and loosened his arms only enough that he wouldn't hinder the convulsions any more than necessary.

Arthur unfocused his eyes and stared forward, unseeing, the only privacy he could really offer right now as the fit shook Merlin's frame, muscles cording in a palsy under Arthur's hands like cramps that would not let up. The force of it jolted Arthur as well, but he refused to offer Merlin any more indignity than he was already suffering from it. He tried not to listen either but it was harder to close his ears than his eyes when the man in his arms sounded like he might be choking. He let Merlin's limbs contract and curl him into a loose comma, and used that tight furl to roll him sideways, letting Merlin's face tip toward the floor just in case he actually was choking. Arthur could feel a slimy wetness against the back of his hand where Merlin's cheek pressed along with an occasional scrape of clenched teeth, and sincerely hoped that it was saliva, or even vomit, rather than blood.

It lasted long enough for Leon to start pounding at the armory door, demanding that Arthur reply or they would break it down. He glanced at the still-trembling form in his arms, gradually going limp as the tremors shook themselves free, unknotting Merlin's limbs from their rictus. He slumped in Arthur's grasp, breathing ragged. Arthur lowered him to the stone floor, careful that he would not smother himself, before shouting at Leon to stand down. He had to pry Merlin's fingers from his gambeson, after which they twitched weakly against the floor where Arthur placed the hand. Though he knew that he needed to deal with Leon before the knight decided that Arthur was in danger after all, he remained bent over his knees for a long moment, calming the race of his own heart. Merlin had gone too still on the floor in front of him, but he could see the stutter of his ribcage as he breathed, and the latent twitching here and there along his frame caused by the protest of abused and overexerted muscles.

"Hold, Leon – I'm coming!" Arthur pressed himself to his feet and crossed the armory to unbolt the door.

Leon startled back at the force with which Arthur flung the door open. "Sire, we thought – "

"Only you," Arthur interrupted. Several other knights littered the hall behind Leon, and Arthur gestured at them to clear the way. "Everyone else out."

Leon gave both Arthur and the other knights a wary look, but obediently followed Arthur back through the room, past and around the racks of weapons and armor, silent until they reached the back where both Merlin's practice armor and Arthur's lay discarded. "Merlin?" He hurried forward and made a cursory search, likely for wounds. "Should I alert the guard?"

"No. Just help me get him to Gaius." Arthur shook out an old tatty cape folded on one of the shelves and spread it out behind Merlin.

Without waiting to be told, Leon assisted in rolling Merlin onto the cape, and then folding it to cover him and preserve his dignity. Arthur forced himself not to acknowledge the loss of bodily control that they concealed by it. Leon tore off his glove with his teeth and held the backs of his fingers in front of Merlin's nose to confirm breathing. "What happened, sire?"

Arthur shook his head, because he didn't know beyond, "He had some sort of a fit."

"A fit?" Leon frowned. "Was he injured in practice?"

"No more than usual, and no bumps on the head. It happened once before, though, over a year ago." Arthur knelt down and maneuvered Merlin up until his could get his arms up under Merlin's and around his chest. "Get his legs."

Leon lifted, and together they shuffled through the rows of weaponry, careful not to knock Merlin into anything. Thankfully, Leon asked no further questions as they navigated the corridors to the physician's quarters, a short trip seeing as they were adjacent to the armory. The chambers were empty when they arrived, though, so Arthur tipped his head toward Gaius's bed, which was the closest clear surface. Merlin was lean and bony, but he wasn't light by any means.

They hoisted him over onto the old straw mattress and Arthur gestured Leon back when he started at Merlin's boots. "I've got this. Go find Gaius. He's usually making rounds in the lower town this time of the morning."

"Yes, sire." Leon gave Merlin one last, concerned look, and then hurried out, shutting the door behind him.

The silence was oppressive once Leon had gone, and Arthur wondered when he had gotten so used to Merlin's _noise_ that he had to fight the urge to fidget without it. "Merlin?" Arthur pursed his lips and looked around as if some treatment might be sitting on one of the tables, conveniently labeled with Merlin's name. Of course, there was nothing, and it would take some time for Leon to find Gaius and walk him back. He shook his head and shrugged off the useless feeling that tended to settle over his shoulders whenever he sat alone in a room that wasn't his personal chambers. This was ridiculous.

Arthur pulled Merlin's boots off and tucked the old cloak closer around him before dragging a stool over and reflecting on the absolute travesty of his kingship. He was worried. More worried than a king should be over a servant. It made him angry, but it also made him feel small, and he had no idea what to do with either of those feelings. He never did.

Movement drew his eyes back to the pallet and Arthur abandoned his introspection at the flash of blue visible behind slit eyelids. "Merlin!" He leaned forward and rested his hand on Merlin's chest. "Gaius is on his way. Can you speak?" The last time this had happened, Arthur had waited half the night for Merlin's speech to come back to him. He would never admit how absolutely terrifying it had been to watch his manservant struggle to find words, or to recognize Arthur, or remember where they were, and come up blank. "Merlin – do you know where you are?"

Merlin made some kind of gesture, but its meaning was lost on Arthur. His pupils were the size of pins, though, like two ink splatters on a blue canvas, which couldn't have been good considering the faded sunlight that provided only weak illumination to the room.

Arthur scrubbed his hands through his hair and shoved himself to his feet. He couldn't abide the inactivity of just sitting there while Merlin stared vaguely through him. After a moment of indecision, he located an old horn cup tipped over amongst the remains of a partially eaten bowl of porridge. Probably Merlin's breakfast; he was no better at picking up after himself than he was at picking up after Arthur. Another short hunt turned up clean water on the washstand, and Arthur dunked the cup into the ewer to fill it. Merlin seemed to be watching all of this from the other side of the room, but there wasn't much comprehension in his face as to what he saw. Arthur wanted to make some crude comment about how he'd always known that Merlin really was a halfwit, but he couldn't make the words come.

Arthur had convinced Merlin to drink most of the water in the cup by the time Gaius returned, looking harried and leaning rather heavily on Leon. Arthur backed away and let the physician take over, hovering with Leon near the door. It was with some relief that Arthur caught the faint sound of Merlin mumbling out proper answers to Gaius's questions, voice little more than a crackle of whispers. _Do you know where you are? Camelot. And who is standing over there?_ with a nondescript gesture to Arthur. _The King. Arthur. What is the month? …Muin?_ Leon seemed to unwind some as well, and Arthur nodded at him to go ahead and see to his other duties now that the crisis was past.

Once they were alone, Gaius gestured Arthur to join them. "He's alright now, sire. Just a bit of lingering disorientation."

Arthur nodded. "He is to take whatever time he needs to recover."

"Thank you, sire." Gaius's hand remained splayed over Merlin's chest in much the same place as Arthur's had rested earlier. "I've given him a sleeping draught for now; he needs rest more than anything else."

"Yes." Arthur let his eyes wander past Gaius and off into the room. "What caused this? He wasn't always like this, was he?"

"No, sire." Gaius stood, clearly restless, and busied his hands rearranging the various herbs and tinctures bottled on his work table. "This is an acquired affliction, I'm afraid."

Arthur nodded. "Was it his magic?"

Too late, it occurred to Arthur that simply blurting that out with no preamble might have been a mistake. The color drained from Gaius's face at an alarming rate and Arthur had to catch at his arm to guide him to a stool before he sank to the floor right where he stood.

"I'm sorry," Arthur offered. "I assumed you knew – "

Gaius waved off the apology. "Merlin has only ever used it for good. He's protected you – "

"I know," Arthur soothed.

"He doesn't deserve execution. I'm begging you – "

Again, Arthur cut him off. "I know, Gaius. I have no intention of executing him. It would be rather the opposite of what I swore anyway. Merlin's not evil. He's an idiot much of the time, and I'm sure he's done questionable things with it, but I cannot believe that he means me or Camelot any harm. He could have destroyed us ten times over by now if he really wanted to."

Gaius appeared to be catching his breath. "How…" He stopped himself, and though it was clearly not the question he wanted to ask, he amended, "You swore a vow?"

Arthur nodded. "To the disir."

Gaius shook his head. "You swore never to allow magic back into Camelot. To renounce the old religion. Magic _is_ the old religion. The two cannot be unwound."

"That's not what I swore."

Gaius blinked at him. "But…Merlin said – "

"Merlin was not with me." Arthur pursed his lips. "I bade him wait outside, the fool. He tried to convince me that there was no place for magic in Camelot. Him – a warlock. I didn't say anything afterwards to disabuse him of the notion – I didn't want to say anything until I knew why he'd done it." Arthur glanced around and located a stool for himself now that he could be assured that Gaius wouldn't expire of fright right in front of him. With his elbows on his knees, Arthur studied his hands carefully. "I still don't understand. For a while, I thought that was his aim – to ingratiate himself to me and then use me to bring magic back to the land, and as much as I want to believe that what he said to me was some kind of a ploy, he isn't actually the best liar, not once you know what to look for." He glanced up to see that yes, Gaius knew Merlin's tells as well, and understood what Arthur was saying. "Why would he do that, Gaius? He all but bade me condemn him, and everyone like him."

Gaius started to speak several times, and then finally frowned, mirroring Arthur's pose. "I think you misunderstand Merlin's goals, sire. Whatever the druids or prophecy or fate, or anything else demand of him, his aim was never to restore magic. It never died in the first place – it can't. Freedom might appeal to him on some level, but in practice, he hasn't any ambition so simple."

"Or selfish," Arthur agreed. He thought of Mordred, dead and gone, and how he had almost gone back on his word at returning to find that the disir had supposedly reneged on their bargain. Arthur had thought that his vow was meant to save Mordred and lift the curse from his wound. But Merlin…he'd seemed relieved by it. It had occurred to Arthur later that night that perhaps Merlin denounced magic in order to achieve Mordred's death. After all, his and Arthur's assumptions about which choice would lead to which outcome for Mordred had been the same.

"Yes. He never learned to be selfish." Gaius's eyebrows twitched and he glanced over his shoulder to ensure that Merlin remained unconscious. When he turned back, he appeared resigned. "I supported your father initially, you know. The purge did not start as an abomination – it was necessary to excise dark magic from the land. It had taken hold of the priestly orders – the priestesses of Avalon had grown drunk on their power; they cared little for consequences anymore. Their greed was souring all of Albion. Sorcerers were used as weapons of war, often against their will, by any two-bit warlord lucky enough to come by one. The dragons were often treated more as slaves than as kin. It was only later that the fervor took hold, and Uther's hatred and grief overrode his better sense. There is, regrettably, much darkness in the land, sire. Much of it is due to the misuse of magic. Merlin knows this. Power drives good men, and good women, to evil deeds – to corruption and the sins of avarice. He can see this as well as anyone. Much like you, most of Merlin's experience of magic is of trying to counter the darkness that sorcerers unleash on this kingdom. I believe that might be why he does nothing to upset the balance that you have struck between justice and the persecution of magic users."

Arthur flinched at the choice of words, but said nothing.

"His most fervent aim has always been to keep you safe and well, sire. It overrides all other concerns. If he advised you to reject the edict of the disir, then it was because he believed to do otherwise would harm you somehow. And that, Merlin could never allow."

Arthur scoffed. "How would that keep me safe?" He didn't give Gaius an opportunity to respond though before saying, "You say the druids make demands of him. What claim do they have on him?"

"It is a prophecy, sire. That he is the one they call Emrys, and that he will stand beside the Once and Future King to usher in a golden age of peace and magic."

Arthur frowned. "He used to call me that. I thought it was rubbish."

Gaius offered him a small, sincere smile. "You always did think remarkably little of yourself, sire."

Arthur glanced up sharply and then made an incredulous sound in the back of his throat. "You believe it. You actually think I'm this king of prophecy and that Merlin is some druid harbringer."

"I do." Gaius tipped his head to one side, and then back.

"Oh for gods' sake. And that nonsense you told him about the sword in the stone – you believe that too?"

"Well, no. That part _was_ rubbish."

Arthur arched an eyebrow.

"I'm relatively certain Merlin made it up."

"' _Merlin made it up._ ' Of course he did. Probably put the damn thing into the stone himself."

Tellingly, Gaius said nothing.

Arthur sighed in exasperation and smeared a hand over his face. "Right. I shouldn't be surprised by all of the lies, really. Seems to be the new procedure at court."

"Merlin had no choice," Gaius rebuked softly.

"Yes, he did!" Arthur slammed his palm onto the worktop with a crack. A few bottles toppled, and the one that rolled, Gaius caught before it fell from the table's edge. Arthur ignored it. "He could have told me what he is! I've known for years anyway – he could have come clean any time and – "

"He had no reason to believe that!" The volume of Gaius's voice, breaking thick over Arthur's brought a tense silence down between them. More quietly now, but no less intense, Gaius snapped, "He believed that you would hate him, at best. At worse, he believed his life at risk. It wasn't even about him not wanting to die – he was terrified at the thought of leaving _you_ defenseless against magical threats, because like it or not, he is probably the _only_ creature of magic who would bother fighting for you – who would mourn to see you fall. You are _not_ so different from your father, Arthur, and in this one thing at least, you have given _no quarter_. Merlin had no reason – none at all – to think that he could tell you what he is. He had _no reason_ to doubt that you would put him on a pyre. Innocence has never mattered to you before, and you don't show favoritism – it would be toxic to your reign to make exceptions to the law for those you favor. Whatever you may think you say in private, as king you make no difference between good and evil in magic, only between sorcerer and not. Whatever secret promise you made to the triple goddess, nothing you have done gives any indication that your stance on magic has changed. It is still outlawed. You still execute those found practicing it, no matter why they practice it. You still denounce it. You still tell _Merlin_ that you denounce it, which now that you confess you've known about it this long, is _cruel_. You tell him to his face that magic is evil, that sorcerers are inherently evil and should be put to death, all while _knowing_ what he is, and knowing that if it were not for him, you would not still be alive to say anything at all!" He paused and seemed to deflate as he subsided, though with difficulty. "Sire."

Arthur took a moment with his eyes closed to swallow his temper, and then sucked in a calming breath. "In public, I must maintain – "

"You don't only say these things in public, and he has no inkling that in private, you think any differently."

" _In public_ ," Arthur bit out, ignoring the interruption. "I must maintain Camelot's laws and strength in front of her people and our enemies. I must – "

"No." Gaius snapped, his tone cold. "You are the king. You can say whatever you like, make whatever laws you like, pardon whoever you like. You simply don't." He gathered himself with a breath and rose. "Now if you will excuse me, I must tend to my patient. He should not be disturbed with all of this shouting."

Arthur fumed for a moment at being dismissed in his own castle, but when he rounded on Gaius to say as much, he caught sight of Merlin lying pale and still on Gaius's bed by the window. The fight leaked from him like water through a sieve. _Please don't burn me._ Was it really such a shock that those were the first words from Merlin's mouth when he realized Arthur knew? Such a simple plea, to say so much.

Without thought, Arthur demanded, "Is that what's been wrong all of this time?" He couldn't meet Gaius's gaze when the physician turned around to regard him again. "Have I been that close to losing him?"

Something in Gaius's outline softened, though Arthur's eyes remained fixed on the steady rise and fall of Merlin's chest. "Merlin is loyal to you," Gaius assured him, voice firm. "That will never waiver."

"Why, exactly?" Arthur tore his gaze away and directed it toward the door. "He has no reason to be loyal to me, has he?"

"Arthur, you are a good king. A kind king – "

"Apparently, I'm not." Arthur glanced back toward Gaius and found his face troubled, though he said nothing more to refute Arthur. And that was telling in and of itself. He gestured to Merlin, half hidden behind the protective stance of Gaius's body. "Is there a treatment for this? Something that will make it easier to bear, or less frequent?"

Gaius swallowed as if uneasy, or perhaps he was just swallowing more harsh retorts. "I have come into some herbs and compounds from beyond the south seas that may help, but I have yet to test them."

Arthur nodded and then hazarded to ask, "The fit near the cauldron, and the one today – were those the only ones he's suffered?"

The lines creased out from around Gaius's eyes, a lessening of the sternness of his regular countenance, which always seemed vaguely disapproving by default. He wore his physician's face now, the one that heralded unwelcome news. "No, sire. The one at the cauldron was likely the first, but there have been several over the past year. I had hoped that they would be temporary, and that he would heal, but it appears not. They have yet to fade."

Arthur nodded to acknowledge that. "I had difficulty rousing him after he slipped off the path."

"It was likely the final straw," Gaius agreed. "He has suffered multiple head wounds over the years, and other injuries and poisons besides."

Arthur took a breath, and carefully failed to look back at Merlin as he made his way to the door. Before slipping out, he ordered, "See that he has whatever he needs." Not that he thought Gaius would do otherwise, but sometimes, Arthur just needed to hear himself say things.

Through the dwindling crack in the door, he heard Gaius reply, "Of course, sire." Something about the way he said it sounded disappointed.

* * *

Arthur intended to go straight to his chambers, order a bath, and then try to order his thoughts, but instead, he found himself stood in front of the sealed doors of the queen's chambers. Guinevere. His hand came to rest against the wood of its own accord, grains and knots worn down by sanding, polish, and the brush of hundreds of hands and thousands of days. Smooth. Aged to a dark, rich mahogany that could have been polished, varnished with a coat of shine, but which was not. Simple wear had made the wood gleam like this.

Guinevere had been gone over a year now. The day of it remained stark in his mind, imbued with preternatural clarity: standing at the water's edge, begging Guinevere with all of his heart to step into the water; the atmosphere redolent with a sourness unbefitting the memory of a goddess, whatever that was; light that he couldn't dare bring himself to look at because it served as yet more proof that his father had never stood a chance of vanquishing the old religion, and should probably never have tried.

And Guinevere. His beautiful queen. Arthur knew that Merlin blamed himself for her loss, no matter that the only one truly to blame was Morgana. Arthur could have told him that, but he didn't know how. If anyone should have noticed that the queen was no longer herself, surely it was her husband? If any other blame waited to be laid, it was his. Arthur still couldn't understand how he had missed it. His Guinevere was a radiant, kind woman – how could he have failed to see the cunning that slipped in? The contempt? How could he not notice that she was gone, however steady her body stood before him day after day after day – he should have seen the manipulations. There were signs. Tyr Seward was only the first. Gwen was compassionate; she would never have agreed with executing the boy. Arthur should have seen as much. There were plenty of things that Arthur should have found suspicious, but instead chose to ignore. After so many betrayals, so many instances of what it looked like when a loved one lied to him, turned on him, surely he should have seen it in her. Or rather, that it was not her at all.

"You would have noticed," he told her out loud, voice soft in the perpetual twilight of the corridor. He let his fingers press and skate over the wood of her door as if he could use it to recall the feel of her skin. "If it were me. You could always see so clear." He thought about the tomb beyond those doors, so much like the one Uther had made of Ygraine. He wondered, briefly, if her things still smelt of her, or if he would find only dust inside.

Footsteps down the corridor broke his reverie and Arthur retreated before his own guards. The thought of a bath no longer appealed; it would just grow cold without Merlin working his literal magic to keep it the perfect temperature.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

 _"You have returned."_

 _"Is your decision made?"_

 _Arthur struggled to swallow, and hoped that the crease of his mouth didn't betray the faint nausea stirring in his gut at what he was about to do. "It is." He pressed his mouth flat, teeth clenched, and lowered his eyes briefly, just a flicker as he reset his feet on hard, damp bedrock. This was not a battle; he could not approach it as one. His voice came out gruff when he said, "I cannot do as you ask."_

 _A moment of stillness, and then a severe voice – the crone? – cautioned, "Consider carefully, Arthur Pendragon. This is your last chance to save all that is dear to you."_

 _"It will not come again." The mother, that one. Maybe._

 _Arthur was glad he had ordered Merlin to stay outside for this. It was not his proudest moment, and in truth, he still didn't know for certain that he would be able to carry this through. Mordred did not deserve to die for him – for Arthur. What price was some lip service and a loosening of minor magics when compared to a good man's life – a life that Arthur now bore as debt? He regarded all of them from the corners of his eyes, as if looking straight upon them might sway him one way or another against his will. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, parched. "I've seen too much…" He breathed, and realized that his own mannerisms mirrored Merlin's the night before: the denial of his own words betrayed by the minute shaking of his own head - the forced quality of his voice as though his own throat tried repeatedly to close itself against him. "I've seen…the evil that magic can do."_

 _"Have you not also seen the good?" The maiden, that time._

 _Arthur nodded, recalling one of a very few times when he had known magic was being performed, and seen goodness in it instead of violence or war or hate. "A blue orb," he confessed, "leading me to safety."_

 _"And still," the crone said, "you would denounce it?"_

 _Arthur shook his head, the motion once again an unwitting betrayal of his own hidden thoughts. But that was only one example in a sea of thousands of misdeeds. He felt as if something were stuck in his throat, too big to swallow and too far down to cough back out. "My manservant is a sorcerer. And even he cautions me against agreeing to your demands." He looked up, and where before he had seen pretenders to the old religion, his eyes seemed to pick out something else now. "Why would he do that?" he demanded, taking an involuntary step forward. "He could have had freedom, and instead, he tells me that magic has no place in Camelot - that he has no place."_

 _"Camelot was built of magic," the mother counseled._

 _"The stones are imbued with magic." The crone._

 _"The ground is saturated with magic." The maiden._

 _"Its walls were raised with magic." The mother again._

 _Arthur's gaze darted from one to another of them as they traded off, as if speaking the thoughts of one being from out of three different mouths._

 _"And yet you would separate it from its foundation?"_

 _"Raze its walls."_

 _"Paint the flagstones with the blood of your allies."_

 _"Betrayer."_

 _"You are your father's son."_

 _"No!" Arthur shouted. "I don't want – " He looked between them each in turn. "I don't want a purge. I am not my father – I don't want that."_

 _"Then your choice is clear," the crone told him._

 _"Is it?" Arthur demanded. "Why, then, is a sorcerer telling me to refuse you? If anyone knows about magic, about its place and value, then it should be him. Shouldn't it? Why would a sorcerer want me to continue refusing magic unless it should be refused?"_

 _"Emrys has lost his way."_

 _Arthur's eyes fell on the crone. "What does that mean?"_

 _It was the mother, however, who stepped forward to answer. And it appeared that she did not do so as the mouthpiece of the goddess. Instead, she pushed the hood from her head, revealing the face of a woman of middle age, lightly lined and kind. "Much was ruined when Uther enacted the purge. Much was changed that should not have been. Many futures which should have been set, were destroyed. You were not meant to learn his ways. You were not meant to have love for him, or to know him as a father. You are poisoned by your love of him, and rent by the knowledge of his cruelty. It cannot be changed." She shook her head, a sad gesture that spoke of lost things that could never be recovered. "Your servant…he was not meant to bear the burden of your destiny alone. He was not meant to fear or hate his magic, or to fear you. He was not meant to hide his goodness. His path was scattered when Uther sought to purge the lands of his kind. His only chance for survival laid in secrets. And secrets can only fester. There was no one to guide him, Arthur Pendragon. No one to teach him what he is – what he is meant for – that he, and what he is, is good. There were only those who could advise from the place of their own fear and failure, or from their own ambition and greed, or from hate, or from their own want of vengeance. They did not all mean him ill. But they did more damage than they know. Your destinies have diverged, and that should not have been allowed to happen. Secrets and fear…guilt and shame…all of these things have driven a wedge between you. Your futures grow sour. The darkness gathers. He can see it, but he has been given no tools to fight back against it, and it has worn him thin. He is lost, and he is struggling alone, without direction. If destiny is to be restored, then it must be you, Arthur Pendragon, who leads the way forward now. You must open and light the way, else all is lost." She smiled then, a gentle thing, very much as Arthur imagined a mother should look. "Do not blame him for his failings, Arthur Pendragon. Your servant has suffered much, beneath your notice. He knows no other way."_

 _Arthur winced, because yes, justly or not, Merlin has too often fallen beneath his notice. "I know what you want me to choose. But I don't know if I can. I haven't always listened to Merlin, and I've seen what comes of that. He has never – never – led me false. You are asking me to go against the only man whose faith in me has never faltered. I trust him with my life. You, I don't know at all."_

 _The mother nodded. "You speak of going against him, and yet to follow his advice is also to go against him. How would you reconcile that, Arthur Pendragon?"_

 _Arthur inhaled, but found that he had no answer to give to that. He allowed the air to escape again, unused._

 _"You care for him."_

 _"Yes." Arthur didn't even hesitate. "He's a good man."_

 _"You trust him."_

 _Arthur nodded. "He's as true to me as any knight."_

 _"You embrace him."_

 _Arthur furrowed his brow. "Yes," he said again, but it was slower this time – more cautious._

 _"Even though he is magic."_

 _Arthur blinked. He wasn't certain as to what gave it away, exactly, but it struck him that the mother had not been speaking to him as a woman after all. Arthur had been speaking to the goddess the whole time. Finally, as though the word were a sigh of air escaping beneath a lessening weight, Arthur replied, "Yes."_

 _The mother nodded. "Then it seems to me, Arthur Pendragon, that you made this choice long ago. All that remains is for you to speak it."_

 _They regarded each other for what seemed a moment stopped in time, and indeed, when Arthur glanced to one side, he saw a droplet suspended in the air beneath the tip of a jagged rock from which it had fallen. His breath blew out in the chill air, fogged, and stilled. In his ears, his heart beat a drum call like a long, slow march to war. He looked at the mother, at her kind and simple face, and then at the crone and the maiden where they stood in frozen silence behind her._

 _The mother's voice pulled his attention back, and a rush of sound returned with the movement of time. "What is your choice, Arthur Pendragon?"_

 _Arthur straightened where he stood, and drew his breath to respond. It didn't even occur to him that the choice had ceased to be about Mordred's life, or even about magic at all_.

* * *

"George! Stop."

The temporary servant paused in rearranging the wardrobe. "Yes, sire?"

Arthur pushed away his picked-over breakfast and stood. "Look, you're an excellent servant."

George puffed up. "Sire! Thank you, sire!"

"Right." Arthur struggled to keep a straight face. "And I understand that there is normally a certain way to…arrange things…a proper way…which Merlin does not follow."

"Sire, I am certain that your manservant simply needs an example to guide him. A template, if you will. I would be most pleased to offer my assistance – "

"Be that as it may," Arthur allowed, choosing his words carefully. "I prefer his arrangements be left as they are."

George blinked, glanced at the cracked ewer filled with pairs of socks rolled up in balls that he had pulled from the wardrobe, and then blinked at Arthur some more as if he couldn't comprehend the notion.

Arthur nodded as if he were talking to a simpleton, or a tiny child holding a freshly sharpened sword. "It's alright, George. Just set it back where you found it and close the door, and then you won't have to look at it."

"But sire – " George frowned at the overflowing ewer with such consternation that it might have held the most terrible truths of the universe.

Arthur bobbed his eyebrows. "Yes, I know. But just the same, put it back. Otherwise, I'll have to listen to Merlin complaining that he can't find anything, and then I'll have no socks at all. Just…put it back."

George returned the ewer of socks to the wardrobe as if interring bones in an ossuary. He was still frowning at the closed wardrobe later, between scoops of ash as he cleaned out the fireplace, and Arthur left him to it. He wasn't sure that the ewer would actually survive being left alone with George, royal edict or no. So many harmless accidents could befall an already cracked ewer.

The corridors were still mostly empty this time of morning; Arthur wouldn't be awake at all yet if he hadn't been set upon by the most boisterously proper servant in the five kingdoms. It was impossible to sleep through the pleased little noises of candlesticks being polished by a man who loves brass the way normal people love spouses. The carefully folded napkin packed with sausages made a warm bundle in Arthur's palm as he strode through the halls. George could at least be counted on to bring far too much food to the king's breakfast table, which meant that there was plenty leftover for Merlin. Contrary to popular belief, it did occur to Arthur that his desire to feed up his manservant was not exactly normal, but he wasn't about to stop. It was a comfortable habit for him, and he knew that while Merlin would feel obligated to refuse many kinds of gifts that Arthur might try to bestow (the clothing incident stood out in his mind), food would always be welcome.

He still didn't know what the big deal was about the clothing, though; Merlin had maybe two pairs of trousers and three shirts at any given time, and none of them were in any way suitable for Camelot winters - not even that awful brown coat thing. Arthur understood that he couldn't afford more because he split most of his wages between Gaius and his mother, so why not let Arthur buy him some new things? It was hardly befitting the manservant of the king to run around looking like a pauper anyway. If anything, giving clothes to Merlin was a gift to Arthur.

He resolved to try that argument, since winter was coming soon, and Merlin still needed more suitable attire for it.

Arthur passed the armory and the doors leading out to the practice field, still barred against the night, then climbed the short flight of stairs to the physician's quarters, his mind consumed with plots to properly clothe his ridiculous manservant. The earliness of the hour escaped his notice since he wasn't used to being about before most people woke, and he pushed open the door to Gaius's chambers without thinking at all that he might be disturbing anyone.

It was the chill that stopped him cold on the threshold. Arthur went still like a hunter in the wood, and took in the sight of a few pitiful embers slowly dying in the fireplace. None of the candles were lit, and there was too little dawn light coming through the windows to illuminate much. Something felt off; he had not simply walked in before the inhabitants woke. Arthur couldn't have said what was wrong, exactly, but he could feel it in his bones. He dropped his hand from the door latch and stepped cautiously forward, feeling along the floor with his feet, his ears straining to catch any sound that might reveal the situation to him. About halfway through the room, it occurred to him that the quiet was what had struck him so hard in the doorway. Gaius snored, rather horribly. But it was completely silent in the room now.

Arthur peered into the darkness, located a candle, and took it to the dying fire to coax a flame to its wick. The little flare of light was enough for Arthur to see that Gaius's bed was empty and unslept in. He also saw what looked like a collection of herbs abandoned in the middle of being made into medicines on the work table, an upended bowl of freshly ground powder, and a candlestick knocked on its side, half melted in a pool of its own dried wax. Arthur stepped around the edge of the bench and stopped, forcing his heartbeat to slow and his breathing to remain even. Once collected, he knelt down and pressed his fingers to the cool skin of Gaius's neck, then held them in front of the old man's face to feel for absent breath. He sat back on his heels afterwards, just breathing, his blood thumping gently in his ears. It must have been sudden, then. Arthur hoped it had been painless, at least. He looked down at the bundle of sausages still cradled in the crook of his elbow. Of all the things that threatened to break his composure…

Arthur set the candle up on the worktable and the sausages next to it, dashed angry hands across his eyes, and then looked up. He nearly jumped out of his own skin when he picked out another dim shape of a man crouched on the floor several feet away, on the other side of Gaius's body, staring at him. The flicker of the candle flame highlighted a thin slouched figure leaning against the wall with his knees drawn up far too close to his ears, hands open and lying palms-up on the floor near his hips. "Merlin?" Arthur's heart stuttered in a rapid staccato that clenched up his chest and threatened to take his breath as the first thought that crossed his mind was that he might be looking at a second body, and this scene not one of natural death at all.

But Merlin stirred, the motion stiff as if he hadn't moved in hours. His eyes dropped from Arthur back down to Gaius, and Arthur noticed that he was clad only in his sleeping clothes, feet bare, face blank. Surely he hadn't been there all night, sitting vigil? "His heart stopped," Merlin told him, the calm chilling. "I couldn't fix it."

That emotionless rasp of voice propelled Arthur into a relief of motion. He found a thick quilt on Gaius's bed and brought it over to wrap around Merlin's shivering frame. "You'll catch your death of cold," he admonished, and then winced. Rather than apologize for the callous wording, he urged Merlin up, pulling him out of the tight, unyielding ball he had made of himself on the floor, and walked him to a chair near the fire where he would no longer be able to see Gaius. After stuffing a few fresh logs onto the fire and making sure that they caught, he crouched with a hand on Merlin's shoulder, trying and failing to catch his eye. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

At Merlin's sluggish nod, Arthur squeezed the sharp jut of bone and sinew beneath his hand, and withdrew to locate a servant who could alert the steward.

Once alone in the hall, message sent, Arthur took a brief moment for himself, leant up against the cold stone wall beside the door with his head tipped back to stare at the ceiling. In spite of knowing Gaius all of his life, of trusting his health to the man and accepting his knowledge and advice, Arthur had not been all that close to him. Gaius had been too loyal to Uther, and carried too many of the former king's secrets whether it were still wise to do so or not. Arthur respected him and kept him as a member of the royal household and of his advisory council, but he didn't necessarily trust him – not about everything. Gaius had lied about and hidden too much for that; he had committed too many atrocities by Uther's side, against his own conscience probably, and yet the guilt had not destroyed him as it should have done to a better man. He could forgive Gaius, though, for being too foolishly loyal to question his actions. However, Arthur never thought of Gaius as a friend, not even as a role model. Certainly, he could not see the man as much of a father figure, not to Arthur at least. But this morning, walking into that room, reminded him of sitting vigil beside his own father, a hearkening back to the days when loved ones would guard the body from predators through the dark watches of the night. Arthur had not stood that vigil alone, for all that he'd been the only living thing in the room with his father's body; he hadn't known that Merlin was sat outside the doors waiting all night too. The fact remained that someone had sat it with him, all the same. It made Arthur's chest hurt to know that Merlin had sat here in the dark for hours, truly alone, watching the still body of the only father figure he'd ever known grow cold. I couldn't fix it.

Arthur shook his head and took several deep breaths to collect himself, to reestablish his calm and school his demeanor back to something more useful. It wouldn't help Merlin to dwell on how groggy Arthur noticed him to be when he all but dragged him off the floor and toward the fire. Or on how Gaius must have plied him with another sleeping draught the night before, a strong one to last into the morning like this, to be certain that he got the rest he needed. It certainly wouldn't help anyone for Arthur to realize that Merlin must have fought to wake up when Gaius fell, limbs heavy and uncoordinated from the potion, desperate to help him. How he had probably fallen down the steps from his little tower room, to judge by the livid bruises that Arthur had seen standing out on Merlin's collar bone and forearms. The way he likely stumbled and used the shelves to pull himself upright, knocking over the normally neat stacks of books which were now scattered on the floor. How he must have struggled not to let the draught pull him back under, and felt it sucking at his strength, fumbling his fingers on the lids of jars and bottles of lifesaving medicines as Gaius's life left him. How in the end, that sleeping draught probably did prevent Merlin from saving him, because Arthur knew that Merlin had the training both herbal and magical to do something about a seized heart muscle. And Gaius was still dead.

Footsteps down the corridor put an end to Arthur's thoughts. He pinched the bridge of his nose, high up where his thumb slipped a bit toward the corner of one eye, and then straightened. There was no time for this; he needed to be the king now. His court physician and one of his oldest advisors was dead. This needed to be dealt with.

Arthur ducked back into the physician's chambers and waved the steward toward the body before going to stand near Merlin, who hadn't moved from the chair where Arthur had put him. Leon followed soon after, which Arthur should have anticipated once news reached him of the unexpected death of one of Arthur's councilors. It did startle him a bit though, which Leon was kind enough not to mention. Because it was expected of him, Arthur told him, "You'll lead the knights in training this afternoon. I must…handle this."

"Of course, sire."

Arthur glanced to where the steward and two women were checking the body. Death and cause had to be confirmed officially, something that Gaius himself normally did. He heard chainmail clink softly behind him, and looked over his shoulder to find Leon knelt in front of Merlin's bowed head, his expression somber. Before Leon could say anything, Arthur spun and insisted, "That's not necessary."

Leon twitched in surprise at Arthur's sharp tone, but recovered admirably. "Sire, it's protocol to speak with witnesses to the death. We must confirm the events." He looked at Merlin in covert apology, though, for the impersonal words.

Merlin interrupted whatever Arthur might have said to try to spare Merlin the need to speak of it. "It's fine." His voice was low and rough. "I know you have to ask."

"Later, then," Arthur insisted. "Once you've recovered."

"Arthur, I'm fine." Merlin glanced up at him, and it disturbed Arthur to find reddened but dry eyes, bruised from exhaustion, meeting his own. "You don't need to protect me."

Arthur tried to make another denial, but his breath huffed out without words at the look on Merlin's face. He realized abruptly that he was a terrible friend, if he could be called Merlin's friend at all, because he couldn't stand the thought of listening to Merlin recount what had happened last night. It was less that the whole thing was tragic and more that he would have to listen to the story of it coming out in the same flat, dead voice that Merlin had used when Arthur found him on the floor. Merlin was not supposed to sound like that. Not ever. A better man would stay and offer support, even if all the support entailed was a silent presence propped against the wall. Arthur merely nodded, lips pressed together in a sickly line, and turned away. He could feel Merlin's stare piercing him from behind as he moved out of the room, except that when Arthur glanced back from the threshold, Merlin wasn't paying him any mind at all. So it was his own guilt, then, stabbing him in the back like that. Somehow, that seemed more fitting.

* * *

The day passed in an absolute blur. Arthur attended council and confirmed the rumors of Gaius's passing, which led to a long silence and then an unexpectedly vicious discussion of how best to fill the vacancy. Arthur grew tired of listening to them squabble after a while and ordered them to move on to the next topic, amidst their protests. After that, he inspected the grain stores, met with the steward to discuss holiday preparations and staffing, reviewed the state of the royal coffers, and spent far too long grooming his own horse in the rare peace afforded by the royal stables. On any other day, he may have saddled up and dragged Merlin out for a ride, laughing at escaping the royal guard and any number of knights who tried to rush out after them in horror at their king riding about the forest alone with no one to protect him but his bumbling, mouthy servant. The air was perfect for it – sky mostly clear, breeze soft and lazy, sun bestowing a lingering warmth to tease them through trees only half-bare in a blaze of yellow and orange, with leaf litter crunching in drifts underfoot. He could have gone anyway, perhaps taken a crossbow and a few of the more hunt-savvy guardsmen, but he had no desire to ride out with anyone else when any reason he gave for the excursion would only be an excuse to escape the castle walls for a few hours.

Arthur returned to his rooms late and in a bad mood. He didn't know what to do with other people's grief, so he elected to let Merlin have his space even though it worried Arthur to think that he might be alone in the physician's chambers, in a room too empty to feel comfortable anymore. Surely Gwaine would be with him, though. Someone. Merlin had friends, even if he never chose to lean on any of them. That was his own fault though, wasn't it? Arthur couldn't be held responsible for Merlin never letting anyone close enough to offer comfort when he was hurting. It wasn't like magic drove a wedge between him and the rest of the world, and magic – the laws on it – were the only thing that Arthur had done to hamper him being entirely open like anyone else. Surely the rest of it was Merlin's own fault.

The door slammed in Arthur's wake and he threw his gloves vaguely at a table against the wall. There was a cold supper sitting on his table, neatly laid out, and for a moment, Arthur directed his gratitude at George. The meal was reasonably sized, though – nothing excessive. Merlin-sized. Arthur paused beside his chair and looked at the food for a moment. Eventually his eyes focused past the plate, and he realized that Merlin hadn't dropped off the meal and left; he was sitting on the floor in front of the cold fireplace, his back to Arthur, legs crossed on the bearskin fur rug that laid near the hearth.

"What are you doing?" Arthur demanded.

Merlin jerked, and seemed to realize that he was supposed to be lighting the fire. He moved his hand toward the wood, then caught himself and reached for the flint instead.

Arthur strode up behind him and snatched the flint from his hand. "You shouldn't be here. Don't you have…arrangements or something? George can handle this. Just…take some time off."

"I'd rather not." Merlin unfolded himself from the floor and turned, gaze averted, to gently extract the flint from Arthur's fingers. "There isn't anywhere else to prepare him."

"Prep – oh." Arthur stepped back and let Merlin kneel again to strike at the flint. He had noticed several of the women who perform death rites walking across the courtyard when he escaped to the stables. Even though the old religion was technically outlawed, even Uther had not brought himself to interfere with them. Perhaps he had let them be because every appearance they made signaled another death of the old ways, as if each passing further cemented his hold and power over a new, featureless, magicless land.

It was more likely, after all that Arthur had learned over the past year from studying the records that Geoffrey had squirreled away since the purge, that Uther simply feared to cross them. As much as he stood in opposition to magic and claimed to reject the superstition of it, to have no fear of it, Uther had seen magic and the old religion. He knew its power. He had conceived a son by it, and killed a wife in the process. If anyone knew better than to challenge a death that comes from the old ways, it was Uther. He wondered briefly if the purge were really more of a petty vengeance than any serious attempt at eradication, vindictive or not. He wondered if Uther blamed himself so fiercely that he had to enact the purge to externalize it, to keep from tearing himself apart with it, or if he truly didn't think that it was his fault at all that his wife died, not even a little, for dabbling in magic in the first place.

Merlin had finished with the fire and was working at the laces of Arthur's tunic by the time he wrenched himself from his thoughts. Up close, he could see the strain of the day in Merlin's features. Without any idea of his own intent, he reached up and closed his fingers over Merlin's where they fought with the knotted ties, stilling them. "You don't have to work just to stay here for a while. I'm not entirely heartless, you know."

After a tense moment wherein Arthur thought that Merlin might simply shake him off and go back to picking at the laces, Merlin nodded and slipped his fingers out from beneath Arthur's. "I know." He glanced up, one side of his mouth curling in a sad attempt at cheer. "You brought me sausages." The curl faded and flattened back out, drawing Merlin's gaze back down as well. "Thank you."

It was so sincere, so weighted – too much so for a soggy napkin wrapped around a handful of sausage links gone cold with congealed grease. Arthur inhaled and let it out harshly, a sigh gone wrong. "We need to talk."

"I know." Merlin smoothed the wrinkles from the material at Arthur's shoulders and stepped back, angling himself toward the door in a way that made Arthur think he didn't realize he was doing it. "Gaius said something last night… I wasn't awake all of the way. He said he'd explain in the morning, but…" He jerked his head to one side, a shrug without moving his shoulders. "Well." Merlin moved backwards again; it was just a half-step, but it could have been the length of the kingdom for the distance that it put between them. His chest expanded, fell, and expanded again, a deliberate bid to work himself into saying whatever was on his mind. Finally, he swallowed, fingers twitching at his side, and said, "You know, don't you."

Arthur wanted to close the space between them, though not to touch, nor for anything else so banal. It was simply the kind of conversation that screamed of intimacy. It should be private. It should be close. And there Merlin was, four feet and the whole of the earth away from him. "Yes," he replied, forcing himself to stillness. "I know about your magic." It was some cruel fate that made them live this moment over again. "You don't remember?"

Merlin shook his head, blinking rapidly as if he'd got a bit of dust in his eyes. "I remember being chivvied around the practice yard like a straw dummy." There was bit of a laugh in there, at least. "And the armory; you couldn't get the straps undone." He tapped his fingers to his arm where the leather had dug up under it. "But there's nothing after that." He started nodding to himself, and Arthur itched to block him somehow from taking any more of the tiny, shuffling steps backwards that he'd been sneaking into the pauses in the conversation. "What…" It was just an exhalation, clearly ill timed to fall right at the end of his air, and he sucked in a fresh breath to ask again, more clearly, "What are you going to do with me?"

Arthur wished that Merlin would look at him, or at anything in the room with them other than the door that he seemed to be keeping in his periphery. He needed to diffuse this – jolt Merlin from his prey mindset. They would get nowhere if all Merlin could focus on was escape routes. "Feed you dinner, for starters." He watched Merlin freeze, twitch, and then stutter his gaze up to Arthur, incredulous. Finally. "You didn't bring nearly enough, though. I'll have to ring George to bring us a proper meal, which means he's going to try rearranging my socks again. And I'm not dealing with him this time – you can defend your own ewer."

The snort that Merlin let out at that sounded pitifully wet, and seemed to surprise Merlin as much as it did Arthur. He was making faces that implied he wanted to smile but couldn't be sure that he should, or that it was appropriate, or that Arthur was serious. "I have magic, and you're worried about socks?"

Arthur shrugged. "The socks seem more of an immediate danger." He grinned briefly, heartened to see Merlin unconsciously mirror the expression, and then sobered. "I owe you an apology. I should have told you before now that I knew."

The mirth melted away from Merlin's face like wax turning liquid and smooth beneath the flame of a candle. "Why didn't you?"

"I suppose…I was angry." Arthur hazarded a step forward, gratified when Merlin merely let him approach. "I didn't know how to trust you anymore, at first – your motives. And I felt a bit of a fool, honestly. There was a sorcerer living right there under my nose, in my own household, and I didn't know?"

"You thought I was manipulating you?"

"No," Arthur replied, startled to hear the conviction in his own voice. "I knew you weren't undermining me, or trying to harm any of us. You didn't have any sort of agenda that I could see, other than the obvious." Saving us. "But you're an idiot, so..."

"I was lying to you."

Arthur nodded. "Yes, you were. And I know why. I know…if I hadn't figured it out on my own, the way I did, and you had ever told me…" He felt sick at the thought of baring this truth, but Merlin deserved it. And so did Arthur himself, for that matter. It needed to be said. "I would have reacted badly." He smeared his tongue against the inside of his lips as if he could taste the admission sitting foul in his mouth, and recalled that long ago lunge with a sword across his father's freshly dead body. "I might have done something rash. Something I couldn't take back afterwards."

Merlin nodded, bottom lip caught in his teeth, and exhaled as if shedding a weight that no one had known he was carrying. His eyes shone but didn't spill, nostrils flared, and after a bare moment too long meeting Arthur's gaze, he let his eyes fall, lashes lowered to brush the skin above his cheekbones. He seemed to weigh the risk of saying something more, but the silence won out, and he dipped his head in a short kind of bow before making his way to the door.

"Merlin."

For a moment, Arthur didn't think he'd stop, but his body slowed, molasses dripping down a sloped surface, until he washed up against the door with the pads of three fingers resting on the wood near the latch. Slowly, his head followed the same line and he pressed his forehead into the plank above them. After that, he didn't seem to have any momentum left, and just stayed there with his eyes fallen loosely shut.

Arthur crossed the room softly and pulled at him for a moment, but if anything Merlin pushed himself harder into the door. "Come on. I'm the king; I can't be bothered with worrying about you all night, so you're just going to have to stay here." He hooked a bicep and pried him away at an angle. "For once, just do what you're told, and come sit at the table, all right?"

But Merlin shook his head rather more violently than the situation called for. "I have to make deliveries in the morning, and I haven't mixed all of the medicines for it yet."

Arthur started to tell him that one more day wouldn't matter, but a somewhat upsetting suspicion stopped him. "Did you spend all day making Gaius's rounds?"

Merlin swayed and bumped his shoulder into the door again in an effort to simply leave the conversation. "I had to; there's no one else." He sounded beyond exhausted in that moment. "Most of them can't afford food, let alone medicine. He's all they have." He paused, and then corrected lowly, "Had."

When Merlin thumped his hand at the door yet again, fumbling for the latch, Arthur forcibly hauled him back and steered him toward the bed.

Merlin went mostly without protest, though he seemed a bit confused at his own passivity. "What are you doing?"

"Is there a list of patients that Gaius sees every day?"

"I left it on the worktop. Arthur, what – "

They ran into the bed and Arthur all but toppled him into it. "Good. I'll get the physician from the lower town to cover that for a few days. Rupert, Herbert, whatever his name is. With the nose mole."

Merlin flailed and tried to push himself back to his feet. "They can't afford – "

"They won't have to," Arthur soothed, shoving him back down with little difficulty. "I'll cover his expenses from the royal coffers. It's only temporary, until we work out what to do in the long term. I can't have you running yourself any more stupid than you already are."

Merlin flopped back against a pillow and panted in exhaustion, unresisting in spite of himself as Arthur tugged his boots off. It was no wonder he could barely keep his eyes open now that he'd gone down. He'd barely slept the night before, and was likely still recovering from what happened in the armory. Then he'd gone and spent the day covering for Gaius, and if Arthur knew him at all, he'd also seen to a good number of the chores that Arthur normally set him, including mucking out the stables. He hadn't thought about it, but he knew that the stable boys only mucked the stalls every other day, and today marked the third day in a row that he'd gone down to find everything clean and the hay fresh. As he considered that, Arthur pulled at Merlin's neckerchief, braced for the sight of the bruises that he had left, unforgivingly, in his drunkenness. What he did not expect were the series of reddened scratch marks where Merlin had apparently been itching at himself harder than was healthy. Arthur turned the scrap of cloth over in his hand and picked out a bit of straw trapped in the folds with a sigh. "You're an idiot, Merlin."

Without opening his eyes, Merlin mumbled, "I'll do better, promise."

"You've done enough already. Rest now." Arthur folded the neckerchief and set it on the nightstand with a frown.

Meanwhile, Merlin sank into the mattress, limbs tossed wherever Arthur had left them, his chest settling into a more even cadence of breathing. Without really thinking about it, Arthur perched on the bed near his thigh, jostling him a bit, and took in the worn-out sight of him. Arthur was starting to think that maybe he didn't really know Merlin at all, in spite of how similar they were. The thought disturbed him far less than he expected.

Careful not to wake him, Arthur tugged at the knot of Merlin's shabby old belt, and slid it out from under him. That, too, went on the nightstand, coiled like a thin garden snake. Arthur reached over him and pulled the other half of the thick coverlet across the bed to enfold him like a camp roll, patting it down to be certain that none of the chill of the room would find its way in. He probably could have led a parade past the bed at that point; Merlin's eyes were already moving beneath their lids.

Into the quiet, amidst the soft hush of breath and the crackle of wood burning in the hearth, Arthur whispered, "I still can't quite fathom you out." He smoothed the rich downy fabric over Merlin's chest. "You deserve a better king than me, I think. A better man." Before he could second guess the impulse, Arthur stood, but he leaned back over immediately and pressed his lips to Merlin's forehead, just for a moment. He withdrew then, but only a hair's breadth so that he could speak. "I want to be the king you think I am. But I'm not as strong as you, Merlin. I'm not good like that." He touched his forehead to Merlin's long enough to close his eyes and admit, "I hope you never figure that out." Then he straightened, tugged his shirt back into place, and went to eat his cold supper.

* * *

 _"I know you will make me proud, as you always have."_

 _Arthur pawed at the blood spreading across his father's nightshirt. When he looked away toward the body of the assassin, it was not a circus knife thrower that he saw on the ground. It was Merlin, his eyes clouded and unseeing._

 _"You will be a great king."_

 _"No!" Arthur tore his eyes from the sight and fixed them back onto his father. "I'm not ready."_

 _"You – you have been ready for some time, Arthur."_

 _"No, I need you." Arthur looked up again, across the room, at the betrayal that he kept close to his own breast. But it was the old man now, Dragoon, with his long beard spilling white over the floor, ends stained rust where they met the blood spilled from the chest of Arthur's father. Shaking, incensed, Arthur screamed, "Stop wearing his face!" The force of his words wracked both his own body and his father's._

 _The assassin smiled back, grin set in the right features this time. Merlin blinked. "You cannot be a great king and make him proud at the same time."_

* * *

Arthur jolted awake, the smell of his father's blood filling his nostrils, and clawed his way to sitting up, chest heaving in the dark. It couldn't have been more than an hour or two since he laid down; no lights shone outside his window this late. Listening carefully, however, he could pick out the sound of a march of feet somewhere nearby, close on the battlements that encircled the castle. It soothed him after a moment. He looked down beside him at Merlin snuffling gently about, squirming to recover the warmth lost from Arthur upsetting all of their blankets.

A tattered collection of deep breaths brought Arthur's heartbeat back to a manageable level, and he laced his fingers together over the back of his neck, holding himself in place, grounding himself the way he often did unthinking to Merlin, as if scruffing him like an unruly puppy. Arthur hummed to himself, eyes shut against the images from his dream, because he knew – he knew, he knew, he knew – that Dragoon was just a face that Merlin wore sometimes to hide behind. He also knew that Merlin couldn't have meant it – to kill the king, Arthur's father. He'd been so earnest in the charcoal hut, telling Arthur that all he wanted was to be permitted to live his life in the same peace that everyone else enjoyed. It didn't make sense for him to deliberately sabotage himself by sending Uther to his grave, especially not when the king was already dying. Something went wrong. Arthur remembered grinning across his father's renewed body to find his expression mirrored on the idiot old man. There had been no guile there; he was certain of it. Whatever age skin Merlin wore, he still couldn't really lie to save his life. But all it took was a moment for Arthur to forget that and try to run him through. He was so glad, afterwards, that Merlin hadn't let him.

Gods, this wasn't even a new nightmare; Arthur had been having it for years now. He was thankful that it had ended this time before he took up his sword and used the pommel to beat the hideous grin from the wrinkled face, mangling the body sprawled in a pile on top of his father's so that by the end, he had no idea which of them he was actually trying harder to destroy.

Arthur shook himself and made a point of tucking the blankets back around Merlin so that he settled again, then carefully slipped out of bed. He wouldn't sleep any more tonight, not after that, but he couldn't make too much of a racket without disturbing Merlin. Of course, he was the damn king, and it shouldn't have mattered what Merlin wanted or needed. Arthur still crept across the room, unwilling to make too much noise. He managed to get himself dressed again, somewhat, and a small smile escaped him when he opened the wardrobe to find the sock ewer missing. A basket sat in its place, his socks unrolled from their balls and…ironed, apparently. Arthur picked at one, brows climbing his forehead at the perfectly straight creases aligned just along the seam. It was kind of impressive, actually. He grinned, chose a thicker pair, and shut the door. Merlin was going to have kittens when he saw it.

It was full night outside when Arthur stepped from the main doors of the great hall. The courtyard was dark, the watch fires doing little to illuminate the space. Several guards perked up at his appearance, some quietly alarmed, though whether it was because the king might disapprove of their performance or because they were worried that something was wrong, he couldn't tell. Arthur gestured them back to their posts and descended the stairs halfway, choosing a stair at random to fold himself down on. The guards still seemed uneasy at his presence, but he ignored them. After all, he supposed that having the king appear in the middle of the night, half dressed in his stocking feet to sit on the steps in the chill of autumn, was a little bit alarming.

Leon showed up just as quickly as Arthur expected he would. Other than donning boots and a cloak, he was dressed similarly to Arthur in clothes that weren't good for much more than sleeping. Arthur regarded him sidelong as he settled in next to Arthur like mates sharing a log at a campfire. "Which one of them went crying mummy?"

"Baldo," Leon replied. "He followed you down from the balcony," he added, referring to the open colonnade overlooking the main entrance to the royal household. "May I be plain, sire?"

"I should hope so, by now."

Leon acknowledged that with a nod. "Hubert has been familiarized with Gaius's patient list and medications, as you asked."

Arthur nodded. "Good."

"There is a…general dissatisfaction about his appointment."

"It's only temporary," Arthur said. "Is he disliked or something? Incompetent?"

"Not exactly." Leon reset his feet so that he could clasp his hands between his knees. "It is only that they – that is, we – are concerned that you will deny Merlin the right to take over as court physician. Most of us…prefer him. And he deserves it."

"Yes, he does."

"I also believe that we would all benefit from him taking Gaius's place on the council."

Arthur glanced sideways and gave a light snort. "Is there anything else that you think your king should be doing?"

Leon looked at him sharply to gauge whether or not he had overstepped, and then offered a sheepish smile. "No, sire. That covers it for now."

Arthur huffed out a laugh. "Not that I disagree, but it isn't as easy as all that."

It seemed for a moment that Leon would let the conversation die while they both gazed into the darkness beyond the steps. "Forgive me, sire, but…you do realize he's a nobleman's son. It would be entirely appropriate to appoint him your advisor, even with as young as he is."

Arthur blinked, then turned on the step to face Leon's profile. "Did he tell you that?" he demanded.

"Not in so many words," Leon admitted. "It's just…well, it's obvious, isn't it? He's too well bred for a peasant."

"I certainly thought so," Arthur allowed. "Eventually. But he says he's not."

"Can you blame him?" Leon deferred to his clasped hands, still presenting Arthur only with the side of his face to talk to. "Sire…Arthur. You know that I would never seek to malign your father. Uther was a good king, if harsh, but he presided over a terrible time in Camelot's history. He was…given little choice in the matter."

Debatable, all of it, but Arthur appreciated Leon's tact if nothing else. "Say what you mean, Leon."

Leon nodded, folding his lips in so that his mustache seemed to blend into the beard below. "Merlin would have to hide his parentage if his father were someone Uther killed."

Arthur frowned. "I know we're not suggesting that Merlin's out for revenge against my father."

"No – no – of course not!" Leon shifted on the step, uneasy. "Sire – I fear that I may say something I've no right to divulge."

It hit him suddenly, what Leon was getting at. "His magic. You know about his magic."

Leon went unnaturally still; he might not have even breathed for a time. Finally, reluctantly, he met Arthur's gaze. "Yes."

They stared at each other, each sizing the other up. Arthur wondered if Leon would actually challenge him, were Arthur to condemn Merlin as a sorcerer. "How?" Arthur demanded.

"Initially? The dragon."

Arthur squinted at him, remembering the twisted little white creature chirping on the shore in the cauldron of Arianrhod. He hadn't told anyone about that. "Go on."

"I was not entirely unconscious when it scattered us in the field."

It took a moment for Arthur to realize that Leon referred to the Great Dragon, and not the crippled pale thing that had consumed his sister. With a long breath, he stated, "It's not dead, is it."

"I saw Merlin order it away – threaten it if it ever harmed Camelot again. He's a dragonlord, Arthur. He's of noble blood."

Arthur nodded, thoughtful. "Yes, I know." He looked away then, aware that Leon continued to stare at his ear. "God, it must have been Balinor." He dropped his face into one hand, remembering the ferocity of Merlin's reaction in the forest as he curled over the dead man's body. "He would have stopped the dragon sooner if he could have. It was Balinor." Arthur had berated him for it, for crying over a stranger. His own father. "I am such an idiot."

Into the quiet, with Arthur still hiding his face, Leon said, "I was saved by magic, when the druids healed me with the cup of life. I felt it, Arthur. Magic is not evil; men are evil, and not all men. Just some." A rustle of cloth betrayed his restlessness – how the conversation left him discomfited. "Perhaps it is time for a change."

Arthur closed his eyes and scrubbed his hand through his hair before coming to rest like that, with his head bowed. You cannot be a great king and make him proud at the same time. He imagined for a moment that he could smell the damp and mildew of a dank old cave where a goddess laid in wait, relegated to the dark. What is your choice, Arthur Pendragon?

Arthur took one last moment to squeeze his eyes shut against the weight of what he felt he must do. Something was dying here on this step, and he wasn't sure if he could survive its loss intact. But enough; he was the king. He did not have the luxury of weakness. Ironically, he thought that he was glad his father had taught him that. "Yes," he replied, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees. He looked down at Leon, gratified that at least he looked as shocked as Arthur felt. "Yes, it is."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The Death Song of Uther Pendragon**

 _Uther's head tilted and moved like a snake as he sat forward on his throne, eyes fixed uncomfortably intent upon Arthur. His words, when they came, were parodies of ones he had spoken in life; they chilled Arthur more now, to hear them coming from his ghost. "Your whole life, I tried to prepare you for the day you would become king."_

 _Arthur bit his lip and fought not to hurl back the sorts of words he might regret. He looked at this caricature of his father, and knew that it was not the man who had sat in that chair alive. It was a shade, and perhaps a truer reflection of what Uther had been, at his core. But Arthur still loved him. It was still his father. And his words, his disappointment and disgust…they stung._

 _"Did you learn nothing?"_

 _Arthur swallowed. "I watched you rule," he replied. "I learned that if you trust no one, you'll always live in fear." His voice gained strength, because he knew the truth of what he said from the sneer that fought to hide within the line of Uther's mouth. "Your hatred came from fear, not strength."_

 _Uther rose from the chair, a looming presence that should not have dwelt in that room anymore. "How dare you," he hissed._

 _"I loved and respected you," Arthur went on, willing his father to hear him, to see what Arthur had known for years now, and to accept it, for the sake of his own peace if nothing else. "But I have to rule the kingdom in my own way. I have to do what I believe to be right."_

* * *

Arthur made several stops throughout the castle just as the sun was rising, Leon close behind him. No one mentioned his socked feet, of course, because he was the king, and he was allowed to be odd. They noticed, though. Pretty much everyone glanced down as he approached, as was proper, and then they blinked or hurried to look away, trying to be deferential without actually staring at Arthur's feet, and pointedly not reacting to the fact that their king was wandering around the castle in the near-dark wearing his bedclothes and no shoes. Leon thought it the most amusing thing he'd witnessed all month; his poorly choked guffaws were not helping anything.

His chambers were empty when Arthur finally returned to them, the sun new and yellow-bright, low in the autumn sky where it shone through the stained glass of his windows. He paused for a moment to look out across the courtyard, eyes falling automatically to the platform that ever stood ready in the square. There was no wood piled around it now. His father had kept a dozen cords stacked neatly in a small chamber below the main stairs, dry hardwood soaked and cured in lamp oil that would light and flame at the slightest spark. It had remained there ever since his death, untouched. Leon stood below, directing a small hoard of servants in bringing it all out. The dew had yet to dry on the outside of the window glass, and every now and then, someone would pass at just the right point that the sparkle in a few drops would blot out the man's face and replace it with a white flare like stars.

Arthur watched until the wood had all been piled about the base of the pyre, and he bore witness to a nervous crowd gathered at the far side of the courtyard, knit close together and hanging onto each other. He made himself look at the fear on their faces, at the way they each looked to their neighbor as if wondering: is it him? Does she have magic? Will I be next, for standing too close, for appearing to know them, for being appalled at the pyre where someone might see my face? This was what the laws against magic had wrought, and Arthur forced himself to see it – townsperson against townsperson, the fear, the thought that whoever makes the accusation first might be spared themselves. This was the price of Uther's grief: A kingdom divided. This was why Camelot, however mighty, was still not strong. Arthur waited for people to begin hurrying about, no doubt spreading rumors and fear throughout the lower town. It made him feel sick. Only when he saw Merlin step hesitantly into the sunshine with a basket of medicines, freeze, and then stumble hastily back inside, did Arthur finally turn away. He had hoped for better from his closest subject, especially after the previous night, though Arthur's disappointment wasn't Merlin's fault. The fact that even he looked at that pyre and thought that Arthur meant to burn someone on it… It hurt to think how little his word actually counted to the one person Arthur trusted above all else, but more, it confirmed his suspicion that in this, at least, he had failed as king.

The halls bustled with activity as Arthur made his way down to the physician's chamber. He heard raised voices as he approached and slowed, just in case he would need to intervene in something untoward. As he drew near the partially open door, however, he recognized Gwaine's tone as the one he used to sooth horses and skittish barmaids. Arthur uncoiled and let the tension drop from his sword arm as he reached the door.

Merlin shouted, "Stop that!" followed by a clatter, and the hard shuffling of feet in a hurry. "Look, I know you don't understand, I'm not asking you to, just – let go!"

Arthur shoved into the room and hesitated at the sight of Gwaine physically restraining Merlin from stuffing things into a travel pack. They both froze, and Merlin paled considerably before he thrashed anew and dislodged Gwaine's hold. Arthur backed into the door to close it, and stayed where he was as Merlin scrambled across the room, spun around a few times as if searching for another way out, and then flailed into the corner.

"Princess – "

Arthur held up a hand to stop Gwaine from saying anything more, his eyes on the rapid flutter of Merlin's chest, heaving like a bird that stunned itself flying into a window. "Merlin, no one is being burned."

Something ugly flit across Merlin's expression like an accusation. He remained silent. Years ago, when Arthur had realized what Merlin was, he'd wondered what might happen, were Uther to ever find out. He had thought that Merlin might attack in defense of himself, beg for his life, curse Camelot and all within it and swear his revenge, or any other number of things that sorcerers typically did when caught. This silence, heavy with judgement and betrayal, was worse than the scenarios that Arthur imagined. There was no stubborn dignity or bravado in it; it was simply a truth. In so many ways, Merlin was still just a boy, stung by the repeated blows of reality as everyone around him continued to fall short of the goodness and decency he thought he was meant to expect from them. And they were such easy ideals to live up to, upon reflection: be a good person; be a just person; act accordingly. Simple things like that shouldn't be so difficult. Arthur wondered if it was the same for everyone else who failed at it, that they simply managed to get in their own ways and trip over nothing.

"No one is being burned," Arthur repeated, forceful. "Not you, and not anyone else."

Merlin shook his head, and kept shaking it, a solid and disbelieving denial. When he spoke, his voice was thick with mucous and unshed tears, his lip curled as if in self-disgust. "I don't believe you. I saw what they're doing."

"Merlin – "

"I saw it! They're making a pyre, Arthur!" He spit his king's name like a curse.

Arthur breathed through the burn in his chest. He had expected this when he'd seen Merlin from the high window, but he had not expected the pain of it. "Merlin, I swear on Guinevere's memory, no one is being burned on that pyre ever again." He stepped forward and made a gesture toward the window. "Look, Merlin. Look at it."

Merlin blinked a few times and then glanced at the window, shoulders hunched as he pressed back against the wall. The column of smoke from the burning wood rose high, black and thick in the air outside.

Arthur forgot all about Gwaine until he moved toward the window himself, glancing at both Arthur and Merlin as if they were two armies poised to clash right where he was walking. He climbed up onto the ledge to get a view out the window, and spent a moment merely standing there. "Merls, he's telling the truth." Gwaine leaned back and stepped down. "There's nobody on it. He's just burning the old wood." Gwaine propped himself against the ledge and regarded Merlin with the kind of care and caution of which no one normally thought Gwaine capable. After a moment, he twisted his head to peer sideways at Arthur too. "Somebody wanna fill me in?"

It may have been Gwaine's reserve that betrayed him – that he asked what Arthur was doing rather than why Merlin would be so upset at a pyre. Arthur pressed his lips together and sighed. "Does everyone know? Honestly, Merlin – how are you still alive?"

Merlin had straightened and let his face go blank, staring at Arthur as if warring with himself over whether or not to regard this as a trick. He ticked and looked at the window briefly, then Gwaine. The way he held himself, the cant of his body, spoke of wariness, as if Merlin hadn't known that Gwaine knew, and wasn't sure of his reaction.

"Magic," Gwaine said, pointing at Merlin. Then he jabbed his finger against his own chest with a tiny flare of pride that he couldn't quite conceal. "Strength." He rotated his hand and wiggled the finger at Arthur. "Courage."

It took Arthur a moment to remember the funny little man at the bridge crossing to the Perilous Lands, and then he nearly rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. That man had all but told Arthur that one of them was magic, and one look at Gwaine would disabuse anyone of the notion that it might be him. He had no restraint whatsoever; he'd never be able to just not use it in front of anyone. But if he were getting onto the subject of obvious moments he should have realized what Merlin was, he would have to count Merlin confessing to the entire court, and Uther, that he was a sorcerer. Of course he'd done it to save Guinevere's life, but even at the time, Arthur remembered being surprised that Merlin could actually lie like that. Only later did he realize that Merlin hadn't appeared to be lying that day because what he'd said was the truth. Idiot. Though which of them was the worse one in that instance could be debated.

Gwaine straightened and sidestepped until he stood pointedly between Merlin and Arthur. "You had better mean what you say, princess. Because I'll let you in on a little secret. I didn't come to Camelot for you." He cocked his head and his eyes drifted in such a way as to make it clear who he was here for. "Making me choose won't end well for that crown of yours."

Arthur nodded. "Just this once, I won't consider that treason."

Gwaine bent his head in acknowledgement, chin cocked to one side, but he didn't take his eyes off of Arthur, and he didn't retreat.

Unnoticed, Merlin had peeled himself from his corner and now appeared over Gwaine's shoulder, cautious. A gust of wind blew a billow of heat and ash in through the window to swirl in the sunlight like a fine mist. It cast the room into hazy undertones, like an old memory. Arthur stared at him, at the careful consideration of his gaze. He wanted to crack a joke to break the tension, but this was not the time for it. However loyal Merlin was, and however much Gaius, at least, believed that it would override all else, Arthur could not take the chance that Merlin might bolt. Never turn on him, perhaps, but leave him all the same. One blow too many.

Arthur sniffed and drew himself up. "Gwaine, would you leave us? I wish to speak with Merlin in private."

Gwaine sized him up for a moment, his assessment less than flattering to judge by the way he continued to eyeball Arthur even as he turned his head for Merlin's permission. Merlin nodded. He didn't even hesitate, truth be told, and Arthur almost wanted to yell at him for lacking any sense of self preservation. It took him a few heartbeats to absorb his own self-assessment: Arthur was not entirely to be trusted. His word was not that good anymore.

As if he could read Arthur's thoughts on his face – and maybe he could – Merlin nodded. "It's alright, Gwaine. I trust him."

Arthur sucked in a careful breath and bit the inside of his lip, his eyes falling shut for a moment. He heard Gwaine moving slowly out from between them, and then to the door. "I'll be just here," Gwaine announced, presumably pointing to the corridor. "If you need me."

Merlin replied, "I won't."

Eventually, the door bumped shut, and Arthur lifted his head from where he had tucked his chin near to his chest. He regarded Merlin from across half of the room. By way of apology, he said, "I guess I had to find out eventually."

Merlin squinted. "Find out what?"

"What you really thought of me," Arthur told him. He lifted a hand around in general. "Regarding magic."

Merlin moved his head back on his neck like a recoiling bird. "Why would you do that?"

The ash continued to swirl in gentle eddies throughout the room, settling in a fine layer like dust here and there. Arthur wondered if this happened with every pyre lit down below. "Because you…you're…" He struggled for the right word, but couldn't quite find it. Finally, he settled on, "Forgiving. Of me. You defend me when you shouldn't. I needed to know how…how bad things are. How hard I'll need to work to convince others that I'm not my father."

Merlin didn't quite glare, but it was a near thing. "You're an arse."

"In my defense, I didn't think you'd try to flee."

Merlin narrowed his eyes, somehow conveying suspicious incredulity. "What did you think I'd do?"

"Yell at me," Arthur admitted. "Maybe throw something."

"I don't throw things at you," Merlin argued, missing the point. "You're the one who throws things. Quite a lot, actually. I have bruises." He paused, then shook his head. "What do I think of you, then? What did this prove?"

"That you don't trust me."

Merlin blinked. "Of course I trust you. Why wouldn't I trust you?"

Arthur started to retort, but his mouth closed of his own accord. He felt his posture sag a bit. "You don't," he countered softly. "And I can think of a dozen proofs without even trying. Merlin, this isn't a condemnation. I know you're loyal – you're stupidly loyal – but you don't trust me. Apparently, you trust me even less than I thought. And that's alright," he insisted even as Merlin shook his head and tried to argue against what he was saying. "I need to earn that. I understand."

Merlin obviously disagreed, but rather than keep denying Arthur's assertions, he came back with a simple, "No. You don't understand."

That gave Arthur pause. Before he could find a way to ask what that meant without sounding either meek or confrontational, neither of which would come off as regal, Merlin swung away to paw at the medicine kit he'd been carrying when Arthur spotted him in the courtyard. "What are you doing? Egbert's covering that."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing!" The outburst seemed to startle Merlin as much as it did Arthur. Merlin pushed at the lid even though it was already secure. Without looking away from his hands, Merlin said, "I can't be in here." His voice was small in a way that set Arthur's teeth on edge, because it wasn't right for Merlin to sound like that. "He's just – " Merlin gestured at the door to his tower room, and then snatched his own hand back as if to negate it. " – there," Merlin finished. "They have him wrapped, and they won't come back until sunset to take him to the forest, and I can't – " He started to bow over the medicine kit, then caught himself and pushed upright again. "Arthur, I can't. I can't be here."

Arthur stepped forward until he faced Merlin's shoulder blade, sharp like a knife in his face. He stared at the knob of Merlin's spine instead and tried to think of a way to tell him that Gaius's death wasn't his fault without sounding trite. He opened his mouth a few times only to close it again, and finally just said, "Come with me to council, then."

Merlin rocked forward a bit and rounded his shoulders as he craned his neck back to look at Arthur. The hope that tried to light his face was pitiful in how earnest it was.

"And I'm sorry," Arthur added, though even he realized that it came off as too flippant. Ungracious. He tried to inject sincerity into his manner as he clarified, "For the bonfire. We can't burn that wood in hearths – it's too combustible, and too volatile to store anywhere else. I wanted to be rid of it, and the scaffold too. It's all burning." He swallowed and let his eyes fix blankly on the window where smoke continued to rise into the sky. "It wasn't my intention to scare you like that. I don't want – " He paused and corrected himself. "It was wrong to test you, however unintentionally. You didn't deserve it."

In Arthur's periphery, Merlin twisted to face forward again and hung his head for a moment. "Council started already. You're late."

"Yes," Arthur agreed. "I'm fully well aware of that fact, Merlin."

"No, you're not. You forgot again." Merlin finally pushed away from the table and faced Arthur, his mouth creased in a smile that didn't reach beyond his lips.

"Well, I'm the king," Arthur replied. He tried not to react to the look on Merlin's face, to the sickly edge of it. "It's not like they can do much without me."

Merlin nodded and looked down, his mouth falling into a wavering line where Arthur could barely see it – not exactly the response that he had been hoping for. "Of course, sire."

"Well. Come on then." Neither of them moved for a moment, until Arthur remembered that he was supposed to be leading the way. Instead, he hooked Merlin around the neck and dragged him around toward the door, and then gentled his arm so that it hung down Merlin's shoulder and over his chest. Merlin stumbled at first, but recovered enough to give Arthur the side eye. Arthur merely thumped him on the chest and kept going, forcing Merlin to keep pace with him.

* * *

It was dusk before Arthur had any time to himself. The court paid its respects to Gaius just before sunset, as his body was carried out, wrapped in plain white linen and borne up on the shoulders of a half dozen men Arthur had never seen before. It could have been anyone. Arthur stayed back out of respect; he could hardly miss the wary looks tossed his way by the many mourners following the procession out into the forest and the cold rain. The manner of preparing the body was of the old religion, and though Gaius had served Uther for most of his adult life, there were many who remembered that he had himself been a sorcerer. Renouncing magic couldn't undo that, and the king's decree still stood unchanged that no sorcerer is to receive a burial. Technically, their participations and mourning broke the law. Arthur watched the trail of people from his chamber window as it wound down the street of the lower town and out of sight. Gaius garnered a respectable funeral train, but there were not so many people that any one should be obscured. Arthur wondered if Merlin were already outside the citadel, waiting at the grave site, since Arthur didn't see him in the procession.

He waited well into the night for Merlin to come back, irrationally hoping that he could make Merlin stay again – sleep where Arthur might keep an eye on him – but he never showed. Eventually, Arthur fell into a restless doze in his chair near the inadequate fire, wondering what was happening in the forest, if all of the people that he had seen following Gaius's funeral train were sympathetic toward magic. Did they condemn him for betraying other sorcerers? Were they going out there to hurl vitriol and blame at his grave? Or did they cry and see their own plights and internal conflicts in him, lying dead in his wrappings like a message?

Some time late in the third watch, Arthur startled awake and nearly kicked Merlin in the face where he had knelt to gently remove Arthur's boots. "What are you doing?"

Merlin looked at him. "They need drying." As if Arthur were the simple one.

Arthur shook his head to try to dislodge the sleep clinging at his mind. He reached out without thinking and found himself being hauled up with Merlin's shoulders propped under his arm. "No, I mean – this. Why are you doing this?"

Merlin merely shook his head and helped Arthur stumble across the room to his bed, drunk with sleep and exhaustion. Arthur wondered how Merlin wasn't just as knackered; he'd rested even less than Arthur lately. Always, actually. He rose before Arthur every day, late to breakfast or not, and retired after him. How was he not dead on his feet as a matter of course? "You can't sleep in your chair," Merlin said. "You'll hurt your back."

"Stop being – ow!"

"See?" Merlin deposited him on his bed, which had been turned down and packed with warming stones at some point before he woke. The fire had also been stoked and fed, and now crackled far more merrily with a blaze of heat from where Arthur had previously been sleeping.

Arthur slumped and eventually spilled back onto his sheets while Merlin huffed and seemed to be trying to figure out how to remove Arthur's trousers without it turning into some kind of thing. "I should be troubled," Arthur slurred, his eyes lidded, "at how often you put me to bed like an infant."

"You act like an infant," Merlin muttered. "Off with this. I'm not fumbling around with your trousers." He tipped his head at Arthur's bottom half and gave him a pointed look.

Arthur craned his head to look where Merlin pointed as if he needed the reminder of what trousers were, or where his were located. Then he rolled his eyes and obediently tugged at the laces. "You wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with my trousers."

"Of course not." Merlin was rustling around somewhere outside of Arthur's line of sight. He reappeared in time enough to tug Arthur's loosened trousers off of his legs and then get a soft pair of warm, wooly sleep leggings tugged up to Arthur's knees. "Right. One more stand-up. Come on." He hauled at Arthur's arms and Arthur allowed himself to be pulled back to his feet. He made the mistake of looking down where Merlin knelt in front of him, breath hot on Arthur's thighs as he slid the fabric of the leggings up the rest of the way. More breath puffed against Arthur's navel while Merlin tied the drawstring. On his way to standing, Merlin skimmed Arthur's tunic off of him too, and then he held up a baggy tunic for Arthur's inspection. "Yes or no?"

Arthur didn't look at the tunic; he peered at Merlin instead. The careful, disinterested smile that Merlin typically wore while completing chores wavered. Arthur shifted as he took in the sight of the same clothes that Merlin had worn to council that morning, rumpled but dry, and his usual worn leather boots, free of mud in spite of the rain that had been pouring down since midday. Of course, Merlin was a sorcerer and could have magicked himself clean and dry, but he never had before. "You didn't go to the funeral."

There was something brittle in the way Merlin rocked backwards and jutted his chin in the other direction, refusing to engage with Arthur, his lip a thin curl of…disgust?...beneath his nostrils.

Arthur shoved away from the bedpost. "Merlin, where have you been all night?"

Merlin gave half a head shake and swallowed, except it looked more like someone fighting not to choke. Rather than make any response, he lifted the tunic, clearly meaning to put it on Arthur whether he wanted it or not.

"Stop." Arthur jerked to one side to evade the tunic and then grabbed it and pressed it down to hang between them. "What happened? Was there an injury or something that required your presence?"

"Nothing happened," Merlin told him, pulling the tunic away from him and trying again to slip it over Arthur's head. His tone implied that the subject was not up for conversation.

Irritated now, Arthur smacked at the tunic and Merlin's hands with it. "Stop it. Merlin, he was practically your father."

"I know." Merlin stepped back and looked at the tunic. He seemed to waver for a moment before deciding to put the tunic away again.

"Were you ill again?" Arthur asked. He followed after Merlin simply to force him to look at Arthur. When it appeared that Merlin would refuse to acknowledge him, Arthur snagged him by an elbow and pulled him back around. "You can't walk away when I'm speaking to you. I'm the king."

Merlin's voice went rough with what sounded like fatigue. "Yes, sire. And no, I wasn't ill again, sire."

Arthur sighed through his nose. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really hate it when you do that." He held his arms out. "Shirt."

Merlin frowned at him, but at his chest rather than meeting his gaze. "What, dress you?" He fumbled for a moment and then slid the tunic over Arthur's arms one sleeve at a time.

"No, of course not. I mean all of the 'yes, sire. No, sire. Will there be anything else, sire?'" Arthur mocked. He ducked his head when Merlin lifted the tunic and waited until his head crested the hem of the neckline. "You're the only friend I have, you know. I can't stand it when you go all…" He flapped a hand around and finished, "All George."

"You're a king," Merlin said by way of explanation.

"Yes, I had noticed," Arthur muttered.

"So we can't be friends."

It only took a moment for Arthur to recognize the rephrasing of his own words, so many years ago. All right. I know I'm a prince, so we can't be friends. He rolled his eyes, but more at himself and his own arrogance, or perhaps it was at Merlin for being so bloody dense sometimes. "Well, maybe not in public, but I'd like to think that here, at least – "

"That's not how friendship works," Merlin interrupted. Arthur went still while Merlin tugged at the collar of the tunic. Finally, he gave the tunic a humorless smile and stepped back. "Will there be anything else, sire?" There wasn't even any mockery to it, and there should have been – it sometimes seemed that Merlin mocked him without end.

Arthur stepped forward to conserve the distance between them. "Why didn't you go to the forest tonight?"

Dishearteningly, Merlin stepped back. "Why does it matter?"

"Are you still weakened from the fit? Is that it?"

"No – "

"Then what, Merlin? He was your father in all but blood."

"I know." Merlin backed away again, but this time, Arthur reached out and cupped his hands around Merlin's neck, the line of his jaw, thumbs scratching across a dusting of stubble. He couldn't remember ever seeing Merlin unshaven before; he hadn't even noticed that Merlin was capable of growing a beard at all. Merlin flinched, his head tilting in Arthur's grasp. "What are doing?" he demanded, suspicious. "What – "

"This isn't like you." Arthur tightened his fingers enough to make Merlin try to wrench back again. "You're not usually so…heartless."

Merlin's face rumpled and he tried to pull Arthur's hands off. "Let me go."

"No." Arthur shook his head. "Something's wrong with you. Have you been enchanted?"

Merlin's nostrils flared as he sneered, "Oh, that's very Uther of you. Something unusual is going on so it must be sorcery."

It was an ugly thing to say, and possibly treasonous, but Arthur persisted. "I have lost too many people to a sorcery I didn't recognize at the time. I didn't even see it in my own bed." He thought a silent apology to Guinevere.

Merlin's features went tight and wrinkled, and he fought a little harder to remove Arthur's hands. "Let me go." If Arthur didn't know him, the tone of his voice may have raised hair on his arms.

"You will explain yourself to me," Arthur told him, dead calm by force of will alone. He hoped that the jump of his pulse could not be seen in his neck, though. "What happened tonight? Why didn't you go to Gaius's funeral?" He paused to squint a little closer, looking for something wrong in Merlin's eyes. "You don't seem enchanted. Shouldn't it be obvious?"

"You've never noticed before."

That was a low blow and Arthur caught himself in the midst of opening his mouth to gape. How could he… "You – "

"I can make you let go," Merlin said, a clear threat, but his eyes locked on Arthur and gave him away.

"You wouldn't dare," Arthur countered, growing angry himself. "You would never risk hurting me."

Merlin gave a soft grunt of exertion as he twisted in Arthur's grasp, but the struggle felt disingenuous. He wasn't necessarily trying to get away, though Arthur suspected that he may not have realized that himself.

"Why didn't you go to the woods?"

"Get off of me!"

Arthur pulled him back in by one tensed and corded forearm when Merlin dropped his weight and wrenched himself back. "Stop struggling and tell me." He marveled at the calm of his own voice in the face of Merlin spitting some amorphous kind of rage. It seemed so out of proportion to the conversation thus far.

Without warning, Merlin gurgled out something high pitched and flung himself back, but he only succeeded in being jerked around by the arm that Arthur still refused to release, shoulder slamming into Arthur's sternum. "You don't get to know everything just because you're the bloody king!"

"Merlin – " Worried now, Arthur tried to swipe at the wet smearing across Merlin's cheeks.

Merlin twisted his head to the side, incensed perhaps at his own show of weakness. "Go on, tell me how I'm a stupid girl's petticoat!"

"No." Arthur hauled him closer since he already Merlin's left side jammed up hard and sharp against his breastbone. "I was wrong; some men are worth your tears."

"My tears are worth exactly nothing!" Merlin twisted and wrenched himself away but Arthur wouldn't release him. They overbalanced instead and Merlin's foot caught on a table leg, dragging them both to their knees. "It won't bring any of them back, or make anyone feel better! They're dead! What good would it even do?"

This wasn't just about Gaius, Arthur realized. He grunted and heaved Merlin back across the floor, his arms locked in solid bands as if wrestling a wild boar. "Talk to me. Tell me what this is."

Merlin growled, but it was gurgled and sheer. He made one last desperate bid to break Arthur's hold, then slumped against Arthur in a miserable line of…of shoulder blades like hat racks, and antlers for limbs. "It's alright, my boy." Merlin hiccupped. "I couldn't get to him, he saw me, and he was gasping but he said it's alright, my boy and he was looking at me, and I couldn't – "

"You couldn't save him," Arthur finished.

"He went grey all over." A raw, ugly sound heaved its way out of Merlin's chest and he looked like he might gag on it as he folded over Arthur's arm braced up against his diaphragm. Merlin's fingers found the edge of Arthur's trouser leg and clawed in at it as if he just needed something to ground himself by. "He was looking at me and smiling and his chest spasmed, I saw it stop moving, he just died like that and I couldn't move, it was all numb – "

A soft whoosh drew Arthur's eyes across the room to the fireplace, where the flames started to rise and lick dangerously high. In his arms, Merlin gave a dull, rough howl, more vibration than sound, and twisted again to free himself. The fire echoed it in a roar that spilled out from the hearth. Somewhere near the bed, something shattered, and Arthur glanced over his shoulder at the scattered shards of a pot that had once held an arnica salve, a fine mist dispersing above it from the force of the explosion. He faced forward again, breathing hard. "Merlin." He dragged the struggling body closer again. "Merlin! You have to calm down." The air crackled like static, as when Arthur and Morgana used to rub their socked feet across his father's woolen hearth rug to make their hair levitate. Arthur could feel the goosepimples rising on his arms.

Merlin tore himself mostly out of Arthur's grasp, only to find himself in a headlock. Arthur was actually surprised at the force of the punch that Merlin landed low against his ribs, though it didn't seem a purposeful hit. Arthur merely shifted his hold and then winced when Merlin kicked out and cracked his foot against the wall. The violence was startling; he'd never known Merlin to lose control, to be savage like this, ever, not even in his own defense. But if this was what happened when he gave in – the bench at the table cracked like a falling oak tree and splintered as it fell over – then it was no wonder that Merlin contained himself so well.

"Let me go!"

Every candle in the room flared with a bright column of flame that licked all the way up to the ceiling beams. Arthur understood this kind of fury – helplessness, nowhere to direct his rage but back onto himself, needing some kind of outlet to take the edge off so that it didn't consume alive from the inside…. He couldn't let Merlin go, release him out into the castle like this. He was too dangerous until he'd calmed down. He needed an outlet, any outlet, something just to take the edge off, break him out of this and calm him down.

Arthur propelled them both back across the floor and rolled to trap Merlin against the flagstones before he hurt himself, never mind the thought that he might set the whole room on fire. "You have to calm down. Merlin, listen to me. You have to stop."

There was an edge of panic mixed in with the fury now, and Merlin seemed to realize what he was doing as he stared up with wide eyes at Arthur. "Get off of me – get off – GET OFF – "

Arthur often forgot that Merlin was no longer the boy fumbling a mace in the marketplace; he had grown, and while not as strong as Arthur, his arms were corded with the ropy kind of muscle that gangly boys often acquired as they aged, hard and sharp like marble. Merlin thrashed under Arthur's weight, careless of where he landed his fists, and it hurt. He expected the sting of magic next, braced himself for it, but it never came.

He didn't know exactly when everything shifted. All he knew for certain was that right then, in that moment, the most urgent need was getting Merlin to calm down and reign in his magic. Arthur had to do something to snap him out of it, distract him, break his concentration, or rather the concentration of his panic and whatever other emotional break had fueled this. He couldn't hit Merlin – he didn't want to, and even if he did, he couldn't risk another head injury. It was also possible that if Arthur attacked him properly, the volatile swirl of Merlin's magic would turn on him in self-defense whether Merlin wanted it to or not. His magic wasn't spells; it was elemental, and as such, it could act without Merlin's conscious intent. Arthur thanked the gods for his research over the past few months for teaching him that critical difference. In any case, he needed something else now, something that would serve the same purpose to jar him from his current focus, but that would not seem like an assault to trigger everything funneling down to focus on Arthur.

The water pitcher on the table startled Arthur from his frantic thoughts as it burst and sent steaming water showering over the table. Beneath him, Merlin was trying to suffocate himself with his own arms, eyes clenched shut tightly enough to leak stress tears, gulping in breaths that tried desperately and failed to be centering or calming. He continued to alternate that with pushing to get Arthur off of him, and flinching at each shatter or crack or rush of flame. "Stop, stop, stop, stop…"

None of this was working, and Arthur looked up at the brilliance of the candlelight guttering unnaturally high around them. He would have expected a wave of sound and chaos like battle, but other than the sound of fire like tattered ship sales in the wind, and the occasional item breaking, it was silent enough in the room that the only deafening part of the whole thing was Merlin's terrified, fractured chanting. Arthur felt as if he were seeing the room, hearing it, from underwater, everything ticking slow and languorous like time stopped in a cave. Arthur stopped thinking and moved on instinct, since that was his strength in a crisis anyway. One moment, he was throwing his full weight onto Merlin's chest and trying to get his knees placed to stop all of the flailing, and the next, he'd seized a handful of Merlin's hair hard enough to make him yelp. Arthur's mouth intercepted the sound.

There were too many teeth between them, and Arthur almost pulled away, convinced that he'd done something monumentally stupid. Merlin's fingernails dug into the back of his neck at that moment, however – eight of them in double crescent rows all but gouged into Arthur's skin. He bit at Merlin's lips instead, shifting his weight without thought to grab at other parts of him – pectoral, neck, a hip. His skin tasted of salt – sweat and tears – and the inside of his mouth was hot and thick with mucous and the sourness of a long day without much food, lips chapped and damp, but plush from being bitten and flushed with blood. Arthur pressed and shoved his tongue in, hand now brushing the scratch of hair on Merlin's cheek, puffed out and round with air and Arthur's tongue. The room began to hum and Arthur felt it crackle as his hair stood on end, like static coursing through him from a lightening strike too close. He didn't give Merlin a chance to think, only react – mouth moving and pressing, stealing his air, shoving and penetrating down until their teeth clacked and Merlin's chest heaved for breath in tiny grunts that Arthur felt against his tongue and the fingers that caressed the jut of his neck. All around them, candles guttered and went dark, and a rain of fine particulate suspended in the air fell like a rain of debris and dust and ash all around them.

Merlin jerked his head back and Arthur let his mouth go in favor of sucking brutally at the hard part beneath his ear. He felt more than saw Merlin's lips part, but he definitely heard the shock of the groan that Merlin cut short and choked on. Arthur bared his teeth against Merlin's skin and reached farther down to grab and squeeze the inside of Merlin's thigh, high enough that he could feel the fabric of Merlin's trousers pulling against turgid flesh where his thumb pressed hard into the tendon there. Merlin gasped and his stomach went concave, eyes flying open in shock. They burned gold.

Merlin jerked against him, shoulders curling up off of the floor, and Arthur bore him back down. He wasn't gentle about groping around between Merlin's legs, but neither of them were delicate, and Merlin merely grunted a bit before sinking his teeth into Arthur's bicep, his hips jogging up against Arthur's hand. Arthur felt a knee jab against his waist and spared a moment to position Merlin's leg higher, until it wrapped over his back and clamped down there. They grappled for leverage and then Arthur hunched forward and thrust. A strangled sound punched its way from Merlin's throat, and Arthur lunged for his mouth, determined to have that raw bit of noise for himself. He claimed Merlin's mouth like a battlefield, tongue drilling down and in until anything Merlin breathed would have to come from Arthur's lungs.

The chill of the stone floor bit into Arthur's hand where he had braced it near Merlin's head and he dropped to his elbow, freeing up his fingers to yank at Merlin's hair and hold his head where he wanted it. Merlin was letting out tiny grunts of effort as he squirmed underneath Arthur's weight, searching for friction in all the right places. Arthur shoved his knee higher toward Merlin's hip and ground down against the hard, humid place between them, cloth scratching against their skin like abrasions, a dry burn that skirted the edge of pain. He was shoving Merlin by fractions closer to the wall, and it must have hurt, but neither of them were complaining exactly. All around them small objects dropped from shelves or out of the air, and the hearth fire contracted so suddenly that it nearly went out, all of the air sucked from around it and into a lingering swirl that settled and dispersed near the table. Arthur mouthed roughly across Merlin's jaw, stubble scraping his lips, and bit at the hinge near his ear before skimming his hand firmly up over the rough fabric of Merlin's shirt to pinch at a nipple.

Merlin's back bowed to press his chest into Arthur's hand and then he shook and grabbed at the crease where Arthur's arse met his leg with a sharp huff of breath, artless in the way his muscles contracted like the swell of a wave pushing Arthur up to ride the bow of his body. Merlin pulled at Arthur with both hands and the leg wrapped over his back, his teeth clenched over something strangling that fought to emerge from his throat. It took Arthur a moment to realize what that meant, and he shoved into the wavering curl of Merlin's body, a solid mass of pressure and resistance at the cresting. Merlin's head fell back, neck arched and the jut of his throat on display. His eyes were open, bright blue now and unseeing, lips trembling. The sound that he made should have hurt his throat, tight and grating. It looked like pain, the strain of it in the twist of his body as the paralysis broke and Merlin thrashed his head to the side, body jolting and contracting in lingering spasms against Arthur's. Merlin's other foot skid across the floor and drew in against Arthur's calf, trembling. His fingernails dug like talons into Arthur's shirt, yanking it out of shape. Arthur grasped him by the waist with one hand and cushioned the back of his skull with the other, watching the breaths puff and stutter from Merlin's lips.

Finally, Merlin's breaths subsided into the heavy gasps of an overworked horse, and his body unwound by degrees, unevenly, and not all in the right places. Arthur had gone still without thinking, as if he knew that he needed to hold something together with all of his might until the end. A gentle quivering took hold of the body beneath him, Merlin's teeth actually chattering for a brief moment as he sucked in a hasty breath, and then Merlin blinked several times, rapid flutters to regain his bearings. He appeared shocked by the whole thing, eyes leaking from the release and the aftermath, and the jarring crash after the fight.

Arthur brushed his thumb over Merlin's cheekbone, his own body gone strangely quiet. "It's alright." Why he said it, he wasn't certain, but he had the strangest feeling that Merlin was panicking, somewhere softly down where Arthur couldn't see it. "You're alright."

Merlin still hadn't actually looked at him, and it was worrisome. His leg had slipped from Arthur's back already, but his hands continued to clamp and release, clamp and release with each slowing breath that he took, eyes fixed unseeing on the empty space above their heads. The odd vibration of the air, the weight of it, had passed, the magic finally dormant again. Arthur took it as a good sign and let himself relax in increments, shifting back to take his weight off of Merlin's stomach.

A small hiccup startled its way from Merlin's throat, and that was all the warning he gave before he thrashed all of his limbs out and once and toppled Arthur off of him. The tail end of a kick landed Merlin's heel almost close enough to Arthur's groin to do him lasting damage. As it was, he deflected it just enough that it landed against the join of Arthur's hip and thigh instead, but it still hurt, and it still sent him crashing back to the ground. He couldn't recover in time to stop Merlin wrenching the door open and dashing away down the dark corridor.

By the time Arthur finished cursing and hobbled to the door, guards were jogging in his direction, alarmed by the ruckus in the royal hallway, and Merlin was gone.

* * *

 _Arthur didn't move when Merlin came into the room. He was waiting for the lies, or the false succor, or even the confession._

 _"I am so sorry." Merlin slanted his eyes away and moved sideways into the room, hesitant. "I sh – " He seemed to try to shake off his loss of words. "I sh-sh-sh – "_

 _You should not have killed the king, Arthur thought. But he didn't bother saying it. The awful truth of it was that he couldn't make himself face it again. He couldn't pick up his sword and swing it at Merlin again, not even for this. What kind of a son did that make him?_

 _Merlin looked at the ceiling, resigned and unhappy, and abandoned whatever he actually meant to say. He drew himself up and finally looked at Arthur. "I wish that there was something I could have done."_

 _Arthur thought he'd done more than enough already, but when he looked at Merlin, he didn't see lies. He saw the omissions, of course, but he'd been seeing those for a while now. Without lifting his head off the back of his chair, Arthur swallowed, fingers twitching where he left his hands hanging limp from the armrests. God, he still couldn't see evil in the ridiculous boy, could he? Not even now. Merlin looked devastated, as if he'd sat somewhere and cried every one of the tears that Arthur wouldn't allow himself to shed. Were they tears for the dead king, he wondered? Or for the loss of Arthur's promise to change the laws on magic? He would have preferred tears of regret for breaking Arthur's trust, but as he watched Merlin stand there, unable to keep entirely still, he realized that those were likely already there._

 _Damn him. Arthur wanted so badly to hate him. "Merlin, no one but me is to blame for this."_

 _"You are not to blame," Merlin refuted. He was more forceful than he should have been, but the words were broken, so maybe he had to snap them just to get them out. "This isn't your fault."_

 _Arthur stared at him, refusing to look away or give himself an out for this. "I'm entirely to blame." For trusting you. For asking you. Maybe for using you. His eyes slid out of focus, but he let them. It would be so easy to blame Merlin, and only Merlin, but how could he? Merlin had saved his life more than once. He'd saved Uther's, before. That this time, it didn't work? Magic was treacherous; he knew that already. This… It just proved that again, didn't it? "My father spent twenty years fighting magic. To think I knew better… I was so arrogant."_

 _Merlin didn't say anything, but his face spoke volumes._

 _"That arrogance cost my father his life." Arthur knew that his father may have died anyway, but the actual death blow came from him, at his command. From the hand of his…manservant. Sorcerer. The viper that he held close to his breast. And why? Because he thought his father a grief-maddened old fool for his unforgiving eradication of an entire people. Because Arthur had looked at Merlin and seen just a boy trying to do good, to make his way in the world – a boy who happened to have magic. And Arthur didn't want to destroy that, because he thought it offered hope for a different way. But he didn't know – he hadn't lived what Uther lived, and he hadn't listened to the counsel of his betters. He was an arrogant fool._

 _"You were only doing what you thought was right," Merlin insisted. "I'm sure that old sorcerer meant no harm. Perhaps the spell went wrong."_

 _Arthur broke eye contact; he couldn't watch this. He needed his guilt, but he needed Merlin's too. He couldn't afford forgiveness or excuses for either of them, and he didn't want to grant them even if he could. He needed Merlin to suffer for this. It wasn't a charitable thought, but it was true. He wanted Merlin to hurt for it all the more because it would be beneath Arthur to strike an actual blow himself._

 _"Uther was dying. Maybe nothing could have saved him."_

 _Arthur swallowed an urge to choke on something cruel, and said instead, "We'll never know. All I know for sure is that I've lost both my parents to magic."_

 _Merlin's eyes widened by a fraction, but he said nothing._

 _"It is pure evil."_

 _Merlin's throat worked in silence, tendons straining for a moment over an inability to swallow._

 _Arthur forced himself not to feel bad for what he'd said. It wasn't cruel, it was just the truth, however vicious the flare of satisfaction felt as he watched Merlin react. They both needed to hear it, but Merlin especially. He needed to learn. Deliberately, Arthur met his gaze, direct, and willed Merlin to understand what Arthur was saying – that it was directed straight at Merlin – that it was just for him. A warning. A promise. "I'll never lose sight of that again." A threat._

 _Some kind of comprehension passed there, because consciously or not, Merlin nodded. A knock at the door interrupted whatever else they may have said, and the moment broke. Arthur ignored how Merlin's throat seemed unwilling to work, and the way his breaths had gone shallow with some internal struggle that Arthur could only guess at, and didn't want to even if he could. Arthur looked away at the door, down, and then stood, refusing to look at Merlin again. He was letting his father's killer live. He was letting the man who killed the king remain his most intimate acquaintance. Which one of them were guilty of the greater sin here?_

 _Merlin watched him walk around the table, toward the door, passing close enough that Merlin angled himself defensively and leaned away. Arthur ignored him and walked out. There wasn't much else he could do to punish Merlin for his crimes, other than to make him suffer like this. They'd both be exposed otherwise – Arthur for soliciting the use of magic, and Merlin for performing it, and the both of them for murdering the king. Only Agravaine knew what Arthur had done, and he would remain silent if only because Arthur well knew that he had hated Uther, and blamed him for Ygraine's death. He would shed no tear for his brother in law. As for the sorcerer, Arthur would never tell anyone that Merlin could put on the face of a doddering old man. He had been an idiot in the tunnels, the old man clutching at his shoulders, and dangling right there – Merlin's boots, kicking out from where Arthur had hooked him under his knees to carry him. God, he'd been so relieved when he realized who he was carrying on his back because Merlin would never betray him._

 _In the corridor, Gaius waited with two guards to lead Arthur to his father's body. He took a moment to breathe and collect himself, preternaturally aware of Merlin doing the same behind him. When they started off down the hall, he almost didn't think that Merlin would follow. Arthur wasn't sure if he felt relief or not at the rapid stutter of footsteps hurrying to catch up a moment later. It would be easier if Merlin just left. As it was, Arthur considered sending him away once this was all over. He didn't need the temptation again of a sorcerer standing beside him, willing._

 _The door of the viewing chamber clicked shut behind him with a finality that drove a spike into his stomach. Arthur's feet slowed of their own accord until he found himself adrift on the floor several feet away from the plinth, his father's body a dim blur in repose before him, covered in rich cloth. Arthur had done this. In defiance of the hard-won lessons of his father, Arthur had solicited magic, and killed him. Confronted now with the body of evidence, Arthur couldn't imagine how he would ever be able to look Merlin in the eye again – a constant reminder of his arrogance, and the price of magic. But Arthur was the one who had actually used it. Merlin had acted on Arthur's command, out of Arthur's desperation. Not his own. Arthur had wielded his manservant like a tool to do his bidding, against the learned advice of all others. He had never been so disgusted with himself._

* * *

 _The sunlight blinded him, luminescent shafts that pierced the room. Arthur lifted his head eventually and regarded the sparkling glass of the windows before turning to see how it struck his father's countenance. It was only after he looked that he realized he had expected the light to lend an illusion of fullness and life to his still features. Instead, it highlighted the sunken cheeks and the obvious pallor of death that the night had at least obscured._

 _Arthur turned his face away and stood. He knew now what he must do; the dark watches had clarified it for him. He could not begin his reign on the unavenged body of his murdered king. Magic had killed him – magic that Arthur commissioned, but that Merlin actually cast. He could not allow himself to be drawn in any longer. Merlin wore the face of a boy, but he was not an innocent; he was a sorcerer. And sorcerers were evil. Arthur could not allow himself to remain under this enchantment any longer – he must refuse to be seduced by it again. Merlin wasn't necessarily evil, but he was already corrupted, and his father had taught him that such a perversion could not be excised once it had taken hold. It was unfortunate that Merlin had allowed himself to be sucked in by the allure of magic, but if Arthur felt sympathy for the boy now, it would only allow the perversion to grow until Merlin disappeared within it. Merlin had magic. And magic must be destroyed, for the good of all. After all, however kind and good a man Merlin was, he had already seduced a prince to use magic, and caused the death of a king. It would be a mercy, surely, to let him die now, still in possession of his faculties – still, in the largest part, the kind and innocent boy who had challenged a prince to be a better man. For Merlin, then, he must do the hard thing. The right thing. He must be a good man, even if it destroyed the last part of his soul that knew how to hope. He could not allow Merlin to be destroyed by the evil that he had allowed to find safe harbor inside of himself. It was just like putting down a sick dog, to spare them the pain and suffering of wasting away. It was just mercy. And putting off the inevitable would be cruel to both of them._

 _Arthur strode to the doors, resolute, and pulled them open to spill light into the hall. He had every intention of calling for guards, of sending them after the boy, of refusing to relent or allow his heart to steer him wrong yet again. Merlin was a killer – he was a sorcerer – he was irredeemable._

 _He was sat in a heap on the floor, face turned toward the wall, still not-quite crying. Arthur paused, watching the sunlight wash over his manservant. His hand slid from the handle of the door. Something horrible took up residence in Arthur's chest, but he pushed it back. It was just easier this way; there wouldn't have to be a manhunt. "Merlin."_

 _Merlin seemed to stir himself from a great distance, and rolled his head along the stone balustrade to face Arthur. He didn't move any other part of himself, just his head, as if he hadn't energy or care left for anything else._

 _The odd notion struck Arthur that Merlin's presence was a self-imposed atonement of some kind. It also occurred to him that Merlin half expected Arthur to come out and condemn him for his crime after all. Or worse, that he wanted Arthur to condemn him, because he couldn't sufficiently condemn himself. Arthur felt the hard edges retreating from his expression. He was looking at a man – just a man – eyes empty and tired, wracked by the same guilt that Arthur had struggled with himself over the body of his father. There was hopelessness there. Sadness. But there was also a frightening resignation. Maybe he expected Arthur to finish what he had started in Uther's chamber, by his deathbed. Arthur remembered the denial and panic on Dragoon's face, his scrabbling to do something, anything – the horror as Uther gasped and finally exhaled his last. And the despair that followed. The stark denial. Something more than just a king had died in that room. How had Arthur not noticed it before?_

 _Arthur looked at him, at the nothing in Merlin's face, and couldn't hold onto his resolve. Merlin had made the same mistake as Arthur, in the end. He couldn't condemn his servant without also condemning himself; that was something that Uther had never learned._

 _Something roiling within Arthur settled, and he softened his features. "It's a new day."_

 _Merlin's eyes flickered past Arthur and into the sunlight as if he hadn't realized that yet – as if the glow had been beyond his notice until Arthur mentioned it, or as if he'd somehow assumed that it came from Arthur, rather than from the sun. The eastern warmth highlighted the redness of Merlin's eyes, the bruising of exhaustion beneath them, and the stark, awful lack of affect in his expression. Abruptly, Merlin's pupils focused, and he pushed himself to his feet._

 _"Have you been here all night?"_

 _Merlin seemed to skip a beat at that, as if he'd expected something entirely different, and had stood only so that he could say he'd met it on his feet. "I didn't want you to feel that you were alone."_

 _Arthur lifted his chin, a prickling in his own eyes threatening whatever lingering anger he may have had left. He nodded, just a bob of his head, barely there. "You are a loyal friend, Merlin."_

 _Merlin inhaled, a soft and fast thing, and swayed back from him, his gaze falling. Something in his face told Arthur that he disagreed._

 _Arthur looked down too, and took a few hesitant steps forward. He was doing the right thing, now. He had to believe that. Looking at Merlin, at the same bare guilt that Arthur couldn't show himself, he knew that he was doing the right thing. He turned away and looked back at the body of his father limned in light on its stone bed. Uther made his own son out of magic, and when he didn't like the price, he exacted a terrible retribution. Whatever the official story, Arthur could see how he tore his own kingdom in two in the process. It was fitting, perhaps, that in the end, magic claimed him too. Arthur would not repeat his mistakes. He reached out to either side as if embracing the light, and grasped the edges of both doors to pull them shut, cutting off the luminescence. What was done could not be undone. They would leave it where it lay._

 _Arthur sucked in a deep breath through his nose as he turned and regarded Merlin, still standing wary and uncertain behind him. "You must be hungry."_

 _It was only a tiny thing, the softening of Merlin's features. But it was there. His voice wavered and cracked from disuse and gratitude both when he replied, "Starving."_

 _Arthur let his mouth gentle, almost a smile. "Me too." He swallowed, and burst into motion. "Come on. You can make us some breakfast."_

 _Merlin rotated on his feet as if helpless to resist being drawn to follow Arthur. Maybe Arthur wasn't the enchanted one between them. Maybe it was Merlin, hopelessly tied to Arthur, who couldn't help himself. They climbed the steps in a comfortable silence, and Arthur made a vow to himself then. He would not abuse Merlin's loyalty – his magic. Ever. He would have to protect both of them from the temptation of it, because if anything like this ever happened again, it was Merlin who would suffer for it, not Arthur. He could never allow himself to forget that._

* * *

Arthur waited for the dull throbbing near his groin to fade, a bruise already blossoming in the shape of the heel of Merlin's boot, before calling for George to clean up the mess of his chambers. Under other circumstances, the look on George's face and the abrupt fading of his ever-so-proper greeting would have been comical. As it was, Arthur merely creased his lips with a faint sick feeling and ordered the man to say nothing to anyone about any of it. Then left the man staring with wide eyes up to the black smoke rings on the ceiling.

The practice field was dark when Arthur stepped out onto it, practice dummies lined up in a neat row as if waiting to be beaten into a pile of straw and splinters, just for Arthur. He already had a staff in his hand when the notion struck him that this was exactly what Merlin could never do. He could never let off steam, never find himself a safe outlet, never purge all of the awful things in his head by unleashing his anger onto an inanimate object. Arthur paused and stared at the blank, featureless head of a straw man. If Merlin ever unleashed his temper, he wouldn't just incinerate one practice dummy. He'd raze half the countryside. This luxury, this…release. It would never, ever be an option for Merlin. He could never lose his cool, never find solace in blind exertion, never release the violent tension. To Arthur's knowledge, he had never tried, and he honestly wondered what that kind of constant restraint could do to a man who felt the way that Merlin did. Passionately. With all his heart.

Arthur stepped back, the staff sliding across his palm to roll off his fingertips.

It wasn't all that difficult to find Merlin; several of the guards had taken note of him flying through the corridors as if being chased, but they were used to that. Merlin was constantly late for everything, and careened about the halls at all hours as a matter of course. He'd managed to get rather far, though, so Arthur had plenty of time to replay what had happened in his chambers, and he didn't like the conclusions he'd come to. He had assumed at the time that the outburst stemmed from some combination of anger and loss – from Merlin losing his temper. But Merlin never lost his temper; Arthur wasn't sure he even had one, and with good reason. He would be more than deadly if he had. No, that wasn't anger in Arthur's chambers. It was nothing so simple.

The western wall was only lightly garrisoned, being the tallest and facing no roads. Arthur nodded to the sentry he passed and stepped out onto the battlements. A soft wind whipped his hair to flop from one side of his skull to the other, and he paused to consider what he was doing. What he had already done. This could end, now. Arthur could turn around, go back to his chambers, and never speak of this night again. Merlin would appear in the morning, or not, and they would go on exactly as they always had: king and servant. Proper and separate, divided by station.

Alone.

Arthur had wanted so badly to figure Merlin out, to know him, to share burdens with someone who understood the loneliness. But if he did this – if he kept walking forward out into the night atop the wall – it would change…everything. Arthur had become proficient at being lonely, and he knew that he stood in great risk of following his father's path, but it was familiar. He knew how to be this – he had been raised and trained from birth to be a king, aloof and stood shining atop the whole kingdom. But no one had taught him to be just a man. Of the only people who had ever come close to trying, one was dead and buried beneath a hilltop of flowers, and the other was up here, in front of him. A siege perilous. And Arthur was not adequate to it.

The wind gusted gently and carried the scent of the watch fires to his nostrils, dry wood smoke like war camps at night. Arthur looked down from the wall, to the roof of the garrison barracks. He had never been a friend to Merlin. He had never accepted the responsibility that came with friendship. He had been a prince and a king, and he had risked his life for that of his subject. He had sparred with Merlin, teased him, engaged in horseplay. He had cared, but he had not risked caring too much. It would pain him if Merlin were ever gone, but it would not devastate him. Or at least, not any worse than had his sister's betrayal, or his father's murder, or his wife's corruption.

Something inside of him whispered liar. He had thought Merlin gone once, collarbone smashed in with a mace, and a fall of rock between them. And when his patrols had not found him, had reported him taken and likely dead, Arthur had ridden out himself in defiance of the thought. He'd have gone alone if he had to. The king, in quest after a servant he refused to let lie. A servant he refused to casually acknowledge as anything more than staff, but for whom he had risked his life and crown to keep. His actions always had betrayed him, hadn't they? But only as selfishness. He had let Merlin bear the burden of whatever existed between them, and had strung him along with the odd comment or acknowledgement. But Arthur had never assumed responsibility for Merlin, for his personal wellbeing, as a friend should have done in return. That's not how friendship works. Clothes and heroic lifesaving, and the dubious privilege of being allowed to steal Arthur's leftovers from dinner were not enough. Even the royal dogs received that level of regard from Arthur. It did not equal a friendship. And worst of all, Merlin apparently knew that.

Why, then, did he let Arthur get away with it? He hadn't always; Arthur remembered being challenged over it plenty of times. But he'd only been a prince then. Was it just because of his rank? Or was the little that Arthur gave somehow all that Merlin thought he should have?

Arthur stepped across the stones, down toward the walkway, and out onto the battlements. When he reached Merlin where he sat huddled with his back pressed to the stone wall, Arthur paused. Merlin had his arms crossed over drawn-up knees, face dropped down into the crooks of his elbows. He may have been asleep for all that he didn't stir at Arthur's approach. "Merlin."

Merlin startled badly and nearly fell off of his own bottom. He blinked around and then shook his head at Arthur's knees before looking up, face still muzzy with interrupted sleep coupled with a deeper exhaustion, even as he paled. "Sire."

"You shouldn't let people sneak up on you like that." Arthur shook out his cloak and draped it over Merlin's shoulders before stepping over him to get a better view of the moon over the forest. "If I'd been a bandit, you'd be dead." He glanced down to find Merlin fiddling with the hem of the cloak as if he weren't entirely certain that he should be wearing it and not mending it, or putting it back on Arthur. "At least the rain's stopped."

Merlin blinked at him and gave an aborted head shake, as if in silent demand to know what he was going on about now.

"You know, I've been thinking." Arthur waited a moment for sass that didn't come, and then said, "Yes, I was careful not to hurt myself, thank you Merlin. As I was saying, I've been thinking." He shuffled at the stone beneath his feet and then lowered himself down to mirror Merlin's pose with a soft groan of relief at taking the strain from his lower back. He really shouldn't fall asleep in his chair anymore. "And I have a question for you."

There was no response, and Arthur looked to his left just to be certain that he still had Merlin's attention. A pair of frightened, wide eyes gazed back. It took Merlin two tries to force out a word from what sounded like a cottoned mouth. "What?"

"What on earth could make a man loath himself as much as you seem to do?"

Merlin just stared at him.

Arthur nodded and looked away; he'd suspected that neither of them could answer that, so there wasn't any point in pursuing it. "That wasn't normal, what happened in my chambers. If it were, you'd have been caught by now." He rested his head back against the parapet and rolled his neck until he could see Merlin from the corner of his eye.

Merlin was picking at loose threads along the hem of the cloak now, gently unraveling them. His voice dry and barely audible, he replied, "Sorry."

"I'm not asking for an apology." Arthur took a moment to absorb the thickened northwoods peasant's accent slurring the few words that Merlin had said, as if Merlin were drunk, or had forgotten himself. He looked down and worried at his own fingertips. "Merlin, look. What happened upstairs, what I did…"

"It's fine." Merlin hunched in on himself and scrubbed his hands across his knees. "I know it didn't mean anything."

Arthur watched him for a moment. "I had to calm you down. Break whatever was going on there before you hurt yourself or set the castle on fire. It was either…that…what I did, or a good knock upside the head, and I think you've had enough of the latter."

Merlin nodded, his chest spasming with some kind of hiccup. "Yeah."

This wasn't going exactly how Arthur had expected. "Are you alright? I didn't hurt you?"

"No, it's fine," Merlin told him, voice a bit vacant. Faint.

"Is it?" Arthur frowned and peered more closely at him, trying and failing to catch his eye. "I committed a trespass that in other circumstances might have been unforgiveable."

Merlin started to say something that twisted his features briefly in some kind of disgust, but it was fleeting, and he merely shook his head.

That brief glimpse of revulsion disturbed Arthur more than he cared to admit. "I don't want this to come between us."

"You don't have to keep going on about it." Merlin shifted and tried to be unobtrusive about adjusting his trousers, or more likely the stickiness. He was still wearing the same thing he'd left in, after all. "I already know your opinion on it. It's not like I'm going to forget just because…" He flapped a hand, too large and full of fingers longer and thinner than most. "…that happened."

"You should change before that dries," Arthur told him. "It will be uncomfortable if you wait too long."

"Too late for that," Merlin muttered. He squirmed a bit. Any man of a certain age knew that dance; his indiscretions had gone tacky already.

Arthur chuckled a bit. "Yeah." He gazed up at the sky and the curls of smoke reaching in lazy columns toward the stars. "What do you mean, my opinion?" He frowned. "I've not given you one, have I?"

"Why are you even here?" Merlin demanded abruptly, rather than answer. "Shouldn't you be calling guards or something? Arresting me?"

Arthur let out a burst of laughter. "For what?"

"For what?" Merlin huffed at him. "I could have killed you."

"But you didn't," Arthur replied reasonably.

"It was magic."

"Yes," Arthur drawled. "I had noticed." He smiled and quirked an eyebrow, but Merlin was looking down again, face pinched. Arthur sighed. "Why didn't you go to his burial?"

Merlin resumed picking at the hem of the cloak, fingernails plucking at threads like the beaks of birds. "Gaius's family is from Gaul, across the sea. Roman or something. He wanted his death rights to be like theirs, his…clan or tribe, I don't know what they're called."

Arthur nodded his encouragement. "Surely you were permitted to attend."

Merlin's lip curled, more a sickly expression than one of aversion. "He was to be burned." Merlin swallowed thickly, lips pursed to hold in whatever additional reaction he didn't want Arthur to see, and focused with an unnatural fervor on the distraction of the cloak threads.

Arthur quickly looked away and breathed a moment, because even though Merlin wouldn't come out directly and say it, he hadn't gone because he couldn't watch a sorcerer burn, not even a dead one, and certainly not one he'd loved. That was Arthur's fault. Uther's originally, perhaps, but it was Arthur's Camelot now. So it was down to him to own its sins. He saw Merlin swallowing repeatedly in his periphery, head bowed a little lower now, mouth open to breath through the congestion of his grief. Arthur gave an aborted shake of his head, his own eyes burning, but he had no right. No right at all. Instead, he reached out and hooked Merlin by the neck.

Merlin went willingly this time, no resistance, all but falling against Arthur with his forehead landing in a thump against Arthur's drawn up knees. His back heaved under Arthur's hand. "I'm so tired." The words cracked and he huddled against Arthur without touching him back, arms wrapped over his own stomach as if to hold his insides where they belonged.

Arthur nodded and ducked his own head, chin resting at the crown of Merlin's head. His hair smelt of woodsmoke and lightning. It smelled nothing like his sweet Guinevere, and yet it reminded him of her just the same. Perhaps it was just the warmth of another body against his, or his lips resting against someone's hair. "I know." He let his voice waver because it was only fair. In an echo of the words that Merlin had once said to him, Arthur breathed, "I don't want you to feel that you're alone."

And finally, something in Merlin seemed to break, or perhaps simply let go. He went pliant against Arthur, his breaths ragged, body trembling only enough to feel like shivering in the chill night air. Grief was a quiet thing, Arthur realized. It didn't rage or destroy. It wasn't the terrible force of a purge. It was just this, acceptance and loss, and taking comfort in the ones who were still there.

Eventually, Merlin stilled, but he didn't move away. He just breathed the fabric of Arthur's clothes, motionless except for the expansion and contraction of his ribcage, bones like sticks in a row down his back. Whatever tears still fell, they were just an afterthought, leftovers draining out into the hush before the dawn. Arthur let the damp seep into the fabric of his trousers, and thanked the tact of the patrols that avoided that wall while they sat there, a king and a peasant devoid of class or rank, waiting for the new day.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 _Arthur stared into the campfire, numb. They had smuggled his wife out of the castle on a cart, covered in linens like a plague body. Now she lay off to one side of the campfire, wrapped in the same linens, face covered, limbs folded close and tied with cords. He couldn't help thinking that somehow, the cart and the linens were a harbinger, and that he, Arthur, had brought this upon her himself, by using the belladonna, by simulating a death that proved too tempting to the fates not to accept. A stupid notion, as it was Morgana who had brought this down on them. And yet he kept thinking it._

 _The water of the cauldron glowed faintly even without a moon to light it, far down below the rim of the caldera where Arthur had managed to carry Merlin before risking a return trip for Guinevere's body. He should have left her – it was too dangerous to go back alone with a dragon feasting and flapping about, and leaving Merlin unconscious on the open path was just stupid – but he couldn't leave her there. He couldn't. It was everything he would have lambasted one of his knights for doing, but Arthur did it anyway._

 _Beyond the curve of the shoreline, safely removed from their camp with the whole of the lake between them, the white scales of the little crippled dragon caught and winked at the light as it…ate. As it ate by the light of an absent goddess. Merlin had assured Arthur that it would not come near them again, claiming the knowledge of some little-known passage in an obscure book about dragons not attacking on a full stomach, but Arthur didn't trust it. He remained awake, facing it, his sword laid out beside him within easy reach. He flinched at each crunch of bone echoing across the cauldron, and the morbid part of him wondered: is that a femur? Is that her skull? Would he even recognize the remains as his sister, afterwards, at all?_

 _Merlin stirred in his arms, wrenching Arthur from his absorbed distraction. Oddly, Arthur found himself wishing for Mordred's calm company – the odd healing touch that Mordred called a Druid's simple skill, and that Arthur pointedly did not call magic. They could have used it now. Arthur's wrist and forearm throbbed in time with his pulse, and Merlin –_

 _Arthur shifted and tried to settle Merlin more comfortably. Mordred was dead, and by Arthur's word no less, witting or not. There was no help anymore that he could give either of them. To wish otherwise… That was just foolish._

 _He rearranged them both on the ground, trying simultaneously to keep Merlin propped up so that there was minimal pressure on the wound just above and behind his left ear, and to be free enough to roll him off and grab his sword quickly in case the dragon – or anything else, for that matter – attacked. He should have known it was bad by how long it took Arthur to rouse him after he slipped off the side of the path, but they were in a hurry, and Gwen was starting to fight her way out of sedation above them, and Arthur wasn't thinking straight. Besides, once he'd managed to kick at Merlin hard enough to bring him around, he'd seemed fine other than the blood and a headache. It occurred to Arthur, though, that Merlin didn't allow himself to sleep that night, and that for the next day's journey, he'd been silent and more mindful of his footing than caution alone could excuse. That was the way of head wounds, sometimes, though. It could take a day or two to show its true severity._

 _The dragon screeched, a shrill, sharp echo ricocheting off the face of the rocks like a banshee's cry, and Arthur jumped, clutching Merlin and his sword both a little too tightly until he confirmed that it wasn't coming toward them. He let go of the sword and strained to reach the firewood piled to one side. It was stupid, how he couldn't make himself put Merlin aside even long enough to feed the fire – weak, his father would say – but Merlin was the only thing left to him in this gods-forsaken place that he might still be able to save. He allowed his gaze to flicker out onto the still water where the depths pulsed with a faint, eerie white light. He wasn't sure which was worse: that Guinevere had never even touched the water, or that Merlin had finally – finally – revealed himself a sorcerer when he cast a shield to ward off the dragon's fire._

 _Merlin twitched again, and this time, when Arthur looked down, he found slits of pale iris peering back. The relief was a sharp pain in Arthur's chest. "Merlin!" He angled Merlin upright, one hand on his chest to steady him, and scooted around so that they faced each other. "Here. Drink this." Arthur pressed a water skin into Merlin's hands and then lifted his hands by the wrists to reinforce the command._

 _Merlin seemed confused, his eyes darting around the darkness as he drank, silent and obedient, at Arthur's behest._

 _Once the skin was empty, Arthur pried it from Merlin's somewhat fumbling fingers and set it aside. "How are you feeling?" He paused, waiting, but when Merlin merely blinked at something near Arthur's right ear, he added, "You passed out. Do you remember? The – the light was there, but I didn't know how to ask it for more help." Arthur swiped lightly at Merlin's nostril, where thick black fluid had seeped out in a gloppy string as the light from the lake touched him. When Merlin merely wrinkled his nose, and then his whole cheek before swiping at the air as if shooing a gnat, Arthur grasped him by a shoulder and gave him a light shake. "Merlin! Come on, you never stop talking."_

 _Merlin opened his mouth, faltered, and took several deep breaths before inscribing something nonsensical in the air between them. He shook his head, looked past Arthur again as if he couldn't focus on him, and finally said, "Arthur."_

 _"Yes." Arthur nodded, and realized with a pang that he couldn't recall being this terrified in a long time. He breathed carefully through the clench of his chest and leaned to try and catch Merlin's gaze. "That's right. Do you remember what happened? The magic – do you remember it touching you?" Black and hideous from out of Guinevere's body, creeping like thready vines up Merlin's fingers and smelling of sulfur and tar. "You said something about mandrake. Is it gone now?"_

 _Far away along the shoreline, the crippled little white dragon had apparently finished its feast and was now scratching about in the dirt the way a lizard might to make a warm bowl nest to sleep in. Merlin's eyes remained riveted on it, wide but unfocused. He weaved enough where he sat that Arthur reached out to steady him as he slurred, "Aithusa."_

 _Arthur shook his head and fought to modulate his voice. "Dragon," he corrected. He had no idea what Merlin had meant to say, but the last thing either of them needed right then was a panic._

 _Merlin's eyes tracked unseeing across the barren, dark landscape of the cauldron, and finally came to rest on Arthur, voice insistent as he repeated, "Aithusa."_

 _"Alright," Arthur said, nodding in a manner sure to betray just how much this affected him. "That's fine. Do you know where we are?"_

 _Merlin took a breath as if to respond, and then blinked it back without making a sound, as if the words had been right there and then vanished._

 _Arthur forced himself to stay calm. "Do you remember why we left the castle?"_

 _"Gwen?" Merlin looked around again, but he seemed to have trouble keeping his head up. His chin kept bobbing down to glance off of his chest._

 _Arthur couldn't do this. Not this, with his wife lying dead just a few feet away, less than a day gone. "Merlin?" He directed Merlin's gaze back to his own with his fingers not quite touching Merlin's cheek. But once he had Merlin's attention, wavering as it was, he couldn't think of what else to say._

 _"Something's wrong."_

 _Arthur snorted, wet and completely obvious that he wasn't holding himself together at all. He let out a short, hysterical laugh. Rather than enumerate all of the things that supported that statement, Arthur said, "You fell off the path, do you remember? We were coming to the – "_

 _" – mountains." Merlin nodded._

 _But Arthur shook his head. "No, the – the cauldron, Merlin. Do you remember?"_

 _The little dragon squealed again, and Arthur startled badly enough that it knocked him off the balls of his feet. He landed on his arse, fingers already clamped around the grip of his sword, and then surged to his feet. The dragon still wasn't paying them any mind; it had curled into its dirt bowl and was chirping up at the sky. Or maybe it was just talking to itself; it was hard to tell. At least it continued to pay them no mind as it cleaned its face and claws like a cat, though it didn't get all of the pink off._

 _When Arthur looked back, Merlin's eyes were huge and fixed on the dragon. It confused Arthur at first because clearly, Merlin had the ability to make it stay back. But then he looked at Arthur, and it struck him; Merlin was afraid of Arthur. As far as Merlin knew, Arthur had only just discovered that Merlin was a sorcerer. Here, today. "It's alright."_

 _Or maybe that wasn't it at all. "Morgana." Merlin started to get up, but his legs wouldn't hold him and he was barely steady enough to even sit up. "Arthur – "_

 _"Easy, Merlin." That surprised him a bit; he had expected something about the magic, an apology maybe – not Morgana. "It's alright."_

 _"No! Aithusa." Merlin fumbled up to his knees and then Arthur had to catch at him before he toppled sideways into the fire. "Followed, she followed us – "_

 _"Not anymore," Arthur insisted. "Look, will you just stop? You're going to hurt yourself."_

 _"She can't hurt you – you have to get Gwen – !"_

 _"Merlin!" Arthur struggled to keep him from scrambling off, not that he would get far in his present condition. He was clumsy like a newborn colt on a good day, and this was pointedly not a good day. "Calm down! No one is going to hurt me." He hooked Merlin's arm from behind and yanked him back down, trying desperately to be gentle lest he aggravate an already serious head injury. "Stop – stop, stop!" He didn't know exactly when the quality of the struggling changed, but it hit him abruptly, like a mace to the chest, that Merlin wasn't fighting him anymore; he was seizing._

 _Oh gods, oh gods…. Arthur didn't know what to do._

 _Eventually, he worked one of his gloves between Merlin's teeth like a horse bridle bit, and then just tried to contain the convulsions, which was an exercise in futility. He didn't pray, even though he thought he was supposed to, but he had no idea what to ask for, or who to ask it of anymore._

 _When it finally ended, Arthur thought for a moment that Merlin's unnatural stillness signaled death, and he recalled panicking – truly panicking and throwing around the few belongings he had bothered to salvage from the ridiculous pile of bags he had forced Merlin to carry up here, scrambling fruitlessly through everything within reach, including rocks and dirt, as if something there could miraculously be used to raise the dead. At some point, he ended up huddled against Guinevere's body with Merlin clutched like a doll to his chest, his fingers shaking with palsy where he held his vambrace up against Merlin's mouth, counting the fogs of his breath on the metal until dawn._

 _Merlin woke with the sun, groggy and disoriented, but lucid. He could answer questions again, and he met Arthur's gaze, but he didn't remember arriving at the cauldron, or anything from the previous day. Even the journey out from Camelot, while he knew the reason for the quest and details of their route, seemed hazy. Merlin knew that he'd fallen but he seemed to jumble the memory up with something else involving Mordred – he insisted that Mordred had followed them with a coil of rope, and helped them climb back to the path. When Merlin finally noticed the wrapped body behind them, it took everything that Arthur had not to break down as he watched the realization wash over Merlin's face that they had failed. At least one of them was spared the vivid recollection. But maybe that was worse, in a way. He had never heard Merlin howl before. It was... He wished he could unhear it._

 _In the end, Arthur told him as little as possible of what had transpired in the cauldron. Most of it, Arthur couldn't quite force from his lips anyway. As a result, he also said nothing of the Dolma's failed disguise, or of Merlin revealing himself as both a sorcerer and a dragonlord. Arthur tried to tell himself that it was kindness, or that it would give Merlin a chance to reveal his magic on his own terms – a right that he had surely earned by now – but Arthur already knew by then that Merlin would never tell him of his own accord. It was cowardice that stayed Arthur's tongue, and nothing more._

 _For once, Arthur let himself be a coward. It was easier to just let it lie, and really – who was it going to hurt?_

Arthur blinked himself awake sometime around early evening, which was already shamefully lazy of him, but he couldn't possibly have functioned two nights in a row with no rest. He spent a moment taking stock of himself, mildly surprised at how sore he was in places from grappling with Merlin, of all people, the night prior. There was probably some liniment oil in one of his cupboards, or an arnica paste somewhere.

The second thing he noticed probably should have come first, and perhaps should have startled or upset him more than it did. He had managed to coax Merlin to clean himself up, and then poured him into the royal bed once again after they stumbled in from the battlements, and while Arthur hadn't quite intended this, he had climbed right in after him, too exhausted to bother worrying about it any further than who got which pillows. The blankets were thick and warm around them, and at some point, Arthur had migrated toward the heavy heat next to him. He didn't move now other than to shift an arm out from where he'd crooked it under his head, and calmly regarded the crown of dark hair less than two inches from his nose.

Merlin was facing away, rolled half onto his back with his shoulder pressed into Arthur's chest and his knees drawn up a bit. His face angled sharply away, though, and mostly into the pillow with his chin biting into his shoulder. Both of his hands extended in front of his face, forearms together, elbows crooked, and he snuffled into the cradle of his fingers against the pillow the way a child might. Arthur wasn't embracing him or anything so simple as that, but he had draped one arm over Merlin's ribcage, and each time Merlin inhaled, his expanding stomach brushed the pads of Arthur's fingers.

Arthur watched his muscles tick like the flank of an overworked horse, restless with short bursts of tension and release. That must have been what woke him. Arthur waffled over the whole situation for a moment. Propriety dictated that he remove himself from Merlin's person, but some other, less defined part of him coaxed him to stay where he was, a loose comma protecting Merlin's back with Arthur's wrist and Merlin's shoulder being the only points of proper contact between them.

It had been so long since Arthur felt warm like this – since he could say that he was not alone in an intimate space. He wanted to feel guilt at relishing the body of another curled into Guinevere's place, or disgust at himself for the direction his thoughts bent – not because Merlin was a servant, or even a man, but because he was simply not the wife that Arthur had once professed to love more than his own kingdom. It was only an ache, however, that greeted him when he considered the body before him – a chaste longing for a trusted and known companion – someone he had chosen as kin– in a place that had sat cold and empty for far too long.

Arthur was leaning forward before he thought about doing it, or the ramifications that might come from such an act after what had happened the night before, but he couldn't help himself. His hand curled in the manner of a corpse after death, muscles contracting into rigor until his palm laid flat and firm in the soft hollow near Merlin's diaphragm, fingerpads bent inward against the warm cotton tunic. Arthur bowed his head as well until his brow touched the soft hair at Merlin's crown, and he could smell hair and herbs and sweat, and something sour like despair. He closed his eyes when he realized that last was less a scent and more a feeling welling up in himself than emanating from Merlin's skin. He couldn't have this. Arthur forced himself to remember that. He wasn't allowed to have this, like this – not with Merlin.

Merlin seemed not to notice the movement at his back, still fidgeting through whatever dream had caught him, and Arthur risked inhaling, deep and slow, at the nape of Merlin's neck. He ran his hand higher, up the centerline of Merlin's chest, until he could feel the heart beating against his palm, a thick rhythm like a drumbeat in molasses to count the passage of time, and the loss of innocence that comes with age. Arthur was not innocent; he had not been so for a very long time. Merlin, however, possessed that kind of mien that seemed to retain some shadow of purity, like a wraith trapped within the flesh. Battered, maybe. Precarious. But there, still, in the sadness that had crept in, and the shine that had faded from his eyes.

If Arthur were a poet or a spiritual man, he might wax on about the withering of the boy within the man, or the necessary, dark choices of life that extinguish the wonder of the world. But he wasn't a poet, and he'd seen enough of the divine to see past the enchantment of it. Merlin was no more innocent still than Arthur; he simply possessed a young enough face to mimic it, and a kind enough soul to suffer the loss of it for the rest of his life in a manner that men like Arthur were spared.

Arthur rubbed his nose into warm skin and held himself as still as he could, a weight sunk into the mattress, oddly devoid of tension. Merlin quieted a bit and Arthur felt him sigh in his sleep, pulling Arthur with him when he furled himself into a tighter ball against the chill, drafty air. Arthur ebbed and flowed against his back with each breath they took out of synch with each other. He felt adrift, and wondered if this were peace – if this was what death would feel like. It was horribly morbid, to equate this comfort with fatality, but he wanted to think that this might be what Guinevere felt – this warmth, and this presence – this feeling that maybe men were not doomed to loneliness at the last. She had died…unkindly. Arthur didn't want that to follow her to wherever she had gone. He didn't want her to be alone, where she was.

He thought briefly of his father, and the Stones of Nemeton, and how death had stripped him down to his bare disappointment. His malice. His madness, until even his own son wasn't safe from his wrath. Would Guinevere, divested of all artifice, be gentle and kind again? Or would she be sadness and disillusionment and…and grey the way that Arthur feared he himself might become?

Arthur shook his head because he couldn't dwell on this – he couldn't keep living in this place where he fought his despair like a serpent in every moment of quiet. And neither could Merlin. There was a broken harmony to their suffering – a dissonant, keening chord. It occurred to Arthur that they were both isolated, somehow – Merlin in his fear and his façade, a frantic unchanging effort to never be seen, never be known, and Arthur in the mantle of king. It was, on balance, much the same thing.

Merlin twitched again and his breath hitched before he began to absently scratch and brush his hands together, fumbling and limp with the broken paralysis of sleep, the movements understated but clear – he was trying to brush something off, claw it off, push it away back down his arms and off the ends of his fingers. Arthur only recognized it because it had often invaded his own sleep in the days immediately following Guinevere's death – Merlin trying to lift Guinevere's enchantment by force, desperate, with Morgana's still-twitching, gasping body a blur in Arthur's periphery, the whisper of aftermath spun in a rise of fetid encants in the air, and Morgana choking-laughing on her last breaths, _Emrys_ , as if amused by some irony. And the oily black of the magic crawling up Merlin's arms like vines or tiny snakes, shiny like tar with a screech like a banshee that jarred Arthur so badly that he had forgotten Guinevere, and his sister, and all common sense in favor of dragging Merlin away from his wife's writhing body because he could see with terrible clarity that Merlin intended to pull it all into himself to spare her, if that were the only way, and Arthur couldn't – he _couldn't_. It wasn't even a choice, but if it had been, he knew he would do it again because it might have freed Guinevere, but it would not have saved her, and even Arthur could see that much at the last. She would not want Merlin to die with her, not just for that. It was the last gift Arthur could give her, to not send her friend pointlessly into the abyss after her to feed her guilt beyond the veil at being unable to stop herself destroying him too.

Arthur shook off the memory and the sting in his eyes both, and tightened the arm that he had slung around Merlin's torso. "Merlin, wake up." His mind flashed back to a frantic scramble down a cliffside, rocks dislodged, his wrist throbbing and swollen as he clawed at the straps of packs and bags slung all around Merlin's limp body, blood flowing sluggish from his hairline, shiny and damp stains wetting dark hair, _Wake up wake up wake up_ – "Merlin." Arthur wrapped his hand over Merlin's wrists – boney angles and thin skin – and stopped him struggling against something that was no longer there. "Wake up, now. Merlin."

Merlin coiled in around himself under the blankets, twisting his face into the pillow, as if protecting his soft underbelly from a wild boar. Arthur grabbed him by the shoulder and when Merlin made an odd noise and flailed at him, Arthur caught one of the rogue hands. Abruptly, everything went still, Merlin's body tense and stiffly held in place, and Arthur peered down into wild eyes set in a slack, blank face. "Arthur."

It didn't sound like a question, but Merlin's face said it might be that, so he nodded. "Yeah. You alright?"

Merlin nodded far too quickly to be convincing, and removed his hand from Arthur's grip with a haste that betrayed his lingering discomfort, or maybe fear. The rush, certainly, had not subsided yet – pounding heart, cold sweat, uneven and forced breathing…

"Must have been some dream," Arthur offered.

"Must have been, yeah." Merlin angled himself away and managed to disentangle himself from the twist of sheets wrung around his legs like wet laundry, though he visibly shook when he did.

"Do you remember it?" He mostly only asked because he knew that Merlin recalled very little of what happened at the Cauldron of Arianrhod, and if this were a new memory, he had to wonder what else might have come back to him over the past year.

Merlin hesitated, seeming to curl a bit where he lay on his back; Arthur felt Merlin's stomach muscles grow taut with tension where his hand rested, unobtrusive. Arthur thought about withdrawing, but he didn't feel as if the proximity were unwelcome. Eventually, Merlin admitted, "There were black things crawling up my arms." He brushed at the backs of his hands again in a movement that seemed reflexive. "Trying to get inside."

Arthur swallowed, because he had wondered what those things might have done, had the goddess on the lake not intervened. "Inside where?"

But Merlin shook his head against the pillow, hair catching friction to rise like a halo behind his head. His voice just a whisper, he replied, "I don't know." Then he shrugged, a forced and abbreviated jerk of his shoulders, wholly unconvincing. "It was just a dream."

Arthur maybe should have told him that it wasn't just a dream, but something stayed his tongue. He hadn't told Merlin the worst details of that day – the dragon belching out a scorching line of fire along the rocks, Morgana appearing over the ridgeline, Guinevere… She had been so close to stepping into the water. So, so close to still being with them.

At first, Arthur couldn't tell him about it – the Dolma's glamour sloughing away as Merlin roared at the dragon in a language that sounded like it grated out from a grind of rocks in Merlin's throat, or Guinevere falling in a rough tumble back onto the bank, yanked away from salvation by Morgana's perverted magic. He couldn't force the words past his tongue, as if it were swollen and burnt by that day. Later, Arthur didn't tell him because he didn't want to – because the thought of that day hurt, and he didn't see why they should both suffer the memory of it if one could be spared. Arthur still had nightmares – vivid, visceral things heavy with the metallic scents of blood and magic and death, and Morgana whispering, _Emrys…Emrys…_ over and over like something broken and stuck, her voice a series of soft gasps of laughter as she died, her madness the only the part of her that remained to the last breath.

Arthur shuddered and reached down to bring the coverlet back up to keep out the chill. It had more to do with the things behind his eyes than with the cool air in the room. The memories tended to creep up on him when he wasn't paying attention. Merlin clawing the black bind of Morgana's magic from Guinevere's convulsing body…Merlin killing Morgana, finally killing her in a spitting rage the likes of which Arthur had never seen in him before, and then sobbing hysterical over her corpse after it was all over, after Arthur dragged him back from the piercing light on the shoreline and collapsed, unable to look at any of them as the horror sank in. The magnitude of it. There had been red wheels raised in welts on Merlin's skin like ropes up his fingers and the backs of his hands, curling and reaching up his forearms where the black oily things had latched onto him for purchase as Merlin dragged them out of Guinevere, savage and desperate. Powerful.

Arthur had not forgotten what he saw that day – how he saw it – because it painted such a stark picture of the Merlin that Arthur did not know. The one he wanted to know. The Merlin that terrified him to his core for the incomprehensibility of the power he must be capable of wielding, held dormant in a fumbling, meek servant's frame. How did he even fit into his own skin?

The soft calling of his name broke Arthur from the thoughts that threatened to consume him, and he looked down to where he had bunched his hands up into fists in Merlin's tunic to drag him closer – to keep anything from snatching him away. Merlin had threaded his fingers into the cracks between Arthur's as if to sooth him, blunt nails answering Arthur's need to dig in and hang on. It took several deep, measured breaths to bleed the excess tension from Arthur's frame and he loosened his grip enough that Merlin could properly cover the backs of Arthur's hands with his own and squeeze.

Arthur ducked his head and swallowed, but he couldn't seem to manage the apology that he suspected he owed for getting lost just then. He tensed and twitched his hands back, but not far enough to dislodge Merlin's hold. He should apologize, he thought – apologize and withdraw. Maintain his distance. He felt the long fingers – softer than a servant's should be, mostly bone and knuckle – loosen and slide away a bit, giving Arthur an out. Waiting, Arthur thought, for the inevitable rejection, because this… This was not what Merlin was for. This was not…

Without thinking about it, Arthur let his fists slacken and his hands fall apart to rest open on Merlin's chest. He was looking down at the jut of tendons on the backs of his own hands, calloused palms rough on the soft white linen of the tunic that Arthur had all but bullied Merlin into just a few short hours ago with the sun new in the sky, a spear of light through the curtains. Arthur scrunched the fabric between thumbs and forefingers, aware of Merlin breathing steady before him, chest a gentle susurration against his hands. Too steady. He wondered what he might see if he looked up, but he was too afraid that the look on Merlin's face would edge too close to that mask of the dutiful servant that he had taken to wearing so often since…

…since.

Sleepy Merlin smelled gentler, somehow, than daytime Merlin. Like a warm puppy curled on a hearth rug. Arthur could smell it now, the remnants of rest, but beneath that, his nose also picked out sour nightmares and fear and abrupt waking. He flattened his palms over pectorals – lungs and sweet breathing, life. He was taking liberties and he knew it, Merlin's hands still resting light over Arthur's like permission. Acceptance? Friendship? Or duty to his king? Arthur didn't know anymore. He let his hands smooth the linen over collarbones and up shoulders, Merlin's hands falling to Arthur's wrists, and then his forearms. Arthur's eyes followed the path of his hands up, carotid and jugular and tendons, thumbs tracing firm along stubble-rough jawbones, finger pads curling to press on either side of the vulnerable places along the back of the neck, juts of cervical vertebrae, base of skull, his hands a cradle for vulnerable bone.

Arthur stilled, his gaze stuck at the hollow of Merlin's throat. He watched it ripple as Merlin swallowed. Nerves? Or maybe it was fear. Merlin hadn't said anything. He hadn't even moved. It wasn't natural. Discoloration marred the pale line of his neck and some metallic fear invaded Arthur's mouth with his saliva, like bile. "Merlin?"

Finally, Merlin moved, his torso curving up to meet Arthur's elbows, fingers squeezing Arthur's forearms. His voice hurt Arthur's ears when it came, it was so gentle. "It's alright, Arthur. I don't mind."

What didn't he mind? Arthur sucked a sharp breath in through his nose, fingers spasming tighter where they gripped Merlin's skull, thumbs digging brief and quick into the hard hinge of Merlin's jaw, inadvertently tilting his chin up. The defenseless stretch of Merlin's throat glared back at him, yellowed here and there, branded with Arthur's fingerprints. Arthur thought he might be shaking, but he couldn't tell, and he couldn't lift his gaze from that vulnerable hollow along the exposed column of Merlin's trachea to see if Merlin's face reflected what Arthur was doing or feeling – to see if he could figure himself out from studying his own expression by the reflection it made in Merlin's.

Merlin gripped at Arthur's arm with more purpose and Arthur allowed him to loosen the harsh grip of fingers on one hand, soothe the ache of his knuckles until the stiffness bled out of them. Arthur shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't, but Merlin was so warm. Like spring sun – the way Guinevere had been warm – familiar like muscle aches, and Arthur, he was so, so cold anymore. He let his fingertips scrape light as feathers over the stubble spanned rough over one cheek and only realized that he'd finally moved his eyes when he noticed Merlin's lips part, chapped and sticking together at the corners –

Arthur fumbled his hands away and flung himself around, away from Merlin, until he'd managed to gain the edge of the mattress and hang his legs over the side. He rocked forward with the last of his momentum and hung there on the edge of the bed, hands dug twisting into the coverlet to anchor himself away. He couldn't do that to Merlin. It wasn't fair – it wasn't _right_ – using him like some kind of stand-in for Guinevere. It was selfish to expect that, to even ask.

Neither of them moved for a long stretch of moments, and then the bed jostled and Arthur felt a hand spreading over his back, spanning low between his shoulder blades. He jerked himself out from under Merlin's touch and let his feet pace him away from the bed until he could lean over the fireplace with his elbows on the mantle and his knuckles pressed hard against his scalp. He could practically hear Merlin's confused hurt at the rejection, for all that Arthur refused to turn around and face it.

After what felt like an eternity of silence stretched awkward and thin to breaking between them, Merlin rustled around in the bedding. His feet slapped down on stone a moment later, hard enough to hurt, surely, and angry. Arthur chanced a glance over his shoulder to where Merlin was gathering his soiled clothes from the night before, and then fumbling to get his boots on. The soft cream linen of Arthur's favorite nightshirt hung in unflattering billows from Merlin's thin frame, and Arthur found himself stuck on his memory of that morning, stumbling in from the cold dawn to find his outer chambers still in shambles. Of fumbling Merlin out of his clothes amidst half-hearted protests and then maneuvering him into Arthur's like a battle drill.

Merlin finally gave up on his boots and just stood there, hunched shoulders sharp and unhappy, blades of bone pointing toward Arthur like accusations. He took a breath as if to steady himself and Arthur watched him lift a hand to press his thumb into the corner of one eye. He looked defeated.

Arthur looked away again, down between his arms to his socked feet shuffling through wood shavings and a drift of ash from the hearth.

Merlin's voice sounded across the room like reeds, thin and bent in the wind. "I'm not the one who keeps dragging me into your bed."

Arthur swallowed, because yes that was all him, and no, he hadn't bothered asking first. "It won't happen again," he promised.

Merlin gave an aborted shake of his head, still hunched with one boot hanging limp from his hand. "That's not what I meant." The _why are you doing this?_ remained unspoken, but he may as well have shouted it for how loudly Arthur heard it. "What do you want?"

Guinevere. He wanted Guinevere. But he couldn't say it without being unnecessarily cruel, and it wasn't Merlin's fault that he wasn't her. That Arthur chose to save him, and not her at the cauldron, no matter how he still believed that trying to save her instead would have meant that both of them died, and Arthur could have only carried one of their bodies back for a proper burial. And it would have been Guinevere's. What he actually said was, "I don't want you alone up there." His mind threw up a vision of Merlin's body mouldering in the sun alongside Morgana's, little more than carcasses for a hungry, crippled beast of a dragon, with a scrap of red fabric twisted up in whatever bits of meat might remain. He couldn't quite banish the image once it found purchase in his thoughts.

Merlin tilted his head like a hunting dog catching a rustle of sound.

"Gaius isn't there anymore. If something happened…" Arthur looked at the way Merlin's features crumpled into a sympathetic series of lines – at his stupid face and his stupid ears, and that stupid stretch of hairline that Arthur had seen once too often shining with a slow seep of blood.

Merlin bit his lip and looked down, eyes glistening for a moment before he swallowed it all back again, the loss. "I'll be fine," Merlin told him, all earnest eyes and just…something Arthur had never been sure of. Faith? "It's not your fault, you know. Me being sick."

Wasn't it? Arthur didn't have to make him carry every pack off of the horses – they hadn't needed every supply, every bag for the three-day hike into the cauldron and back. He'd been petty, and Merlin had only just recovered from being poisoned and thrown into a gully to die like so much refuse. Arthur liked irritating Merlin, teasing him, knocking him around a bit, seeing how far he could push him, but there was a line between horseplay and abuse of power that Arthur still couldn't quite manage to locate. Empathy wasn't considered a kingly virtue, and Arthur had never really learned it right. But at least he knew it. Now. All he said though was, "I want you close, where I can keep an eye on you."

Merlin considered him carefully for a moment, and Arthur wondered how he had ever really mistaken Merlin for a fool. Young once, perhaps. Naïve and inexperienced, yes. But a fool? At Merlin's frankly dubious look, Arthur rocked on his feet and looked away, eyes sliding closed. From somewhere in front of him, he heard Merlin concede, "I'll prepare the servant's chamber, then."

That wasn't what Arthur wanted, but he couldn't say that. It would be mortifying, and the whole notion of it was anathema to being king. It was weak and it was possibly a betrayal of his wife, but she was gone, and Merlin still breathed, and Arthur felt sometimes like he was losing himself to grief and the ghost of his father when no one else was there. "There's no hearth in there; you'll freeze."

Merlin frowned, his eyes flickering past Arthur to the disturbed royal bedding, and then back. "There's no hearth in my old room either," he pointed out. "If you've been cold, I can make sure the room is kept warmer. It's just, you hate the warming stones, and last time I put a coal pan at the foot, you forgot it was there and burned yourself."

Arthur's lip curled, though whether it was at the reminder of his own clumsiness, or at Merlin's reluctance to share his bed any longer – well deserved, really – even Arthur didn't know. "Honestly, Merlin. For once, can you just do what I ask?" He hoped it didn't sound as much a plea as he felt it was.

Merlin glanced again at the bed, and Arthur watched him suck his lips in between his teeth. Then he mumbled something that sounded like, "I don't belong there," and bent down to work at his boots again.

"What was that? You can't deny your king." Arthur knew that he was being obnoxious, but it was out before he even registered the words. "You should be grateful, you know. It's not every servant who gets to sleep in the royal bed."

Abruptly, Merlin dropped the boot and the foot he'd been trying to cram into it, and straightened again. Then he very deliberately told Arthur, "I am not Guinevere. I cannot take her place. I don't want to." His hand went to his throat, and he seemed to miss a beat when his fingers didn't find his usual neckerchief there to adjust. He diverted and scrubbed at his hair instead, gave up on the boots, and merely tucked them under his arm along with his clothes.

"I never said you should!" The anger came swift, but it felt like an echo, and Arthur could hear himself saying the same thing in the back of his mind – Merlin was not Guinevere, Merlin could never take her place, and how _dare_ he imply that he could ever equal her, as if he thought that now she was gone, it was his duty to be the king's whore so that Arthur didn't have to lose face and buy one.

Which was when it came to him, bright like a flash of sound – his hands twisted up in Merlin's neckerchief, shoving him too hard against the stone wall and shaking, spitting in his face – _That's not your place! It's never_ _your place!_ Merlin trying to pry Arthur's fingers from his throat. Scrabbling away and yelling at Arthur, throwing clothes at him and walking out before Arthur could apologize or even sort out his own drunken, shameful thoughts.

Merlin was looking at him, frozen with his eyes comically wide, when Arthur finally stopped staring past him and focused back on his face. "There's something behind me, isn't there."

Arthur squinted at him.

"How bad is it?" Merlin asked. "No, wait. I don't want to know. Will it eat me if I move?"

Arthur felt his face creasing into slightly queasy lines, but it was fondness that shaped it. Misplaced, possibly inappropriate affection, given what had occurred over the past night and day, but fondness just the same. Because it was familiar. It was just so… _Merlin_ of him that Arthur couldn't help a rush of warmth and a sense of blessed, sorely needed, ridiculous familiarity. "There's nothing behind you, Merlin."

Merlin narrowed his eyes and tried to look over his shoulder without moving more than necessary.

By the time Merlin started poking at the thick woven wall tapestry with a boot, Arthur couldn't keep it in anymore. "How far would you have let me go?"

Merlin's face did something complicated, and he blinked past Arthur as if trying not to look at the bed they'd both vacated.

The reticence made Arthur's stomach go hollow. He watched Merlin's shoulders fold in, defensive. "Would you have stopped me?"

It reminded Arthur of sitting around a campfire outside a cave, watching Merlin try to say one thing while his body betrayed his denial. There were times Arthur thought they'd never really left that campfire – that maybe he still sat accused, waiting for a goddess's condemnation of his lacking character while Merlin lied to his face and looked like he hated himself for it.

Gentle only because he couldn't manage confident just then, Arthur chided, "Merlin. Would you have stopped me?"

Finally, Merlin screwed his face up, but only at the edges where he must have thought it wouldn't show. "No," he croaked, and immediately turned away.

Arthur followed him across the room and jumped himself when his attempt to touch Merlin's shoulder, to turn him around, startled him further away. "Merlin, stop."

"I shouldn't have let you." Merlin backed off again, skirting around bits of mess from the night before that had escaped Arthur's admittedly half-arsed effort to tidy up, or at least hide the evidence before going to sleep. Of course, the stench of burning ceiling timbers lingered along with the acrid taste of old magic in the air, and the charred marks on the ceilings did nothing to project an air of normalcy.

But that was not relevant at the moment – Arthur would have someone in to clear it all up later. "I hardly think that's on you," Arthur told him, confused. "Merlin, stop." He reached out again, and though Merlin evaded his hand again, he did stop, chin raised, defiant as he stared at Arthur with eyes gone unexpectedly hard. Arthur stepped back, uneasy at the chill there. "You don't have to…do that kind of thing," he hazarded. "I mean, I know last night was…" He tried to sum up the absolute cock-up of the night before with a sweep of his hand. "But you don't have to – with me – just because I'm the king. You know that?"

Merlin almost sneered, but something else got in the way of it and pulled his face into a more ambiguous line. "I don't care that you're the bloody king." He said it as if _he_ would be the one lowering himself, and not the other way around. But maybe he was, Arthur thought; maybe that was exactly how these things worked. "I'm sorry, alright? I know you don't want that from me. I just – "

Arthur cocked his head as Merlin cut himself off, vicious in how he clenched his jaw to stop himself saying anything that might reveal too much. Leaving aside that Arthur had no idea how Merlin got the idea that he might be unwelcome in the bed that _Arthur_ kept dragging him into, he asked, "You just what?"

Oddly fascinated, Arthur watched Merlin's knuckles go white from the force of the grip he kept on his boot. "What do you think?" he demanded, as if Arthur should know – as if he were transparent, which was a crock – Arthur had never been able to see far beyond _Merlin is lying_ or _Merlin is not happy_ or _Merlin is fine now_ or _Merlin believes in me._ He could see everything that Merlin kept on the surface, but that was barely anything at all.

 _It's alright, Arthur. I don't mind. I wouldn't mind…_ The further memory didn't come quickly or like a hammer; it trickled in like backfill in a trench as Arthur watched Merlin hold back offering anything – anything at all – that might leave him open, or make Arthur react badly. Or at all. Again. He could feel the drunken weakness in his hands as he'd sat and let Merlin dress him, the way the room wobbled more than he thought it should for just a few goblets of mulled wine, the dull rush of not-anger, maybe-disgust, but with himself for being so, so tempted. _I would, though…If you wanted. I wouldn't mind._ Imagining Guinevere, the way she looked and smelled and smiled and would never begrudge him comfort in her absence, as Merlin offered…as he offered that. And then hurtling himself forward and grabbing to stop the words, yelling, and Merlin holding his palm up and out in that familiar gesture to ward off an attacker with magic. To protect himself from Arthur. _You are never to imply that you can take Guinevere's place!_

"Why are you here?"

"Because you wouldn't let me go back to my own room."

Arthur turned away to scowl at the burning logs. _You are not the only one who misses her_. "You're not actually that dense." When Merlin merely stood there, apparently not even moving, Arthur snapped, "You're a sorcerer."

Dry as sand, Merlin shot back, "Well spotted." _I'm not good enough to be a whore, much less your servant._

Arthur knuckled the furrow between his eyebrows as if he could grind out the fresh recollection of that drunken night. "In Camelot!" He hissed. The remains of the fire smoldered and spit back, and he wondered at his own penchant for tearing apart the things he valued most. "Why did you come _here_? Why stay? It was stupid, even for you. So why? Why serve me, of all people?" When Merlin drew an audible breath behind him, Arthur snapped, "So help me god, if you start spouting off about destiny again, I will throw you out of the city myself." He wouldn't, of course. It would kill him to be rid of Merlin too.

Eventually, Merlin seemed to realize that Arthur wasn't going to say anything until he received an answer. As if unsure of his own motives, Merlin offered, "You're a good man."

Arthur snorted, an entirely humorless sound. "I am Uther Pendragon's son."

There was a bit of scratching from Merlin's direction, and then the plop of a boot hitting the floor. "You are not like your father. You're a great king, Arthur." He said it with such conviction that Arthur's stomach actually burned from the burst of shame like an ulcer.

Arthur's eyes slid shut of their own volition, and he shook his head. "When are you going to see me for what I am? I'm not your Once and Future King, Merlin."

"You're a good man," Merlin insisted. "I know it."

"Stop pretending." It was barely a whisper, but it rang clear and unmistakable in the room. "You know better. You _know_ me." He sighed as if shrugging off a weight he hadn't known he was carrying. "You have got to stop turning a blind eye to every unforgivable thing that I do."

"I'm not turning a blind eye to anything," Merlin choked. Arthur wondered what his face looked like – if it was sorrow, or disillusionment, or just outrage at anyone disparaging his king, even Arthur himself. That northern peasant's accent came out thick as treacle in a way that Arthur had thought faded years ago.

"How are you not?!" Arthur rounded on him, and felt a sick kind of satisfaction at the way Merlin backed up a step, angling himself as if to shield the vulnerable underbelly from a predator. He wasn't entirely witless, then. "You let me ridicule you, insult you, debase you – "

"I wouldn't call it debasing – "

"Shut up, Merlin. Look at me!"

Merlin's gaze flickered back to Arthur immediately, and it was even more irritating that he simply obeyed.

"You let me hit you, throw things at you…" Arthur could see himself flinging a goblet or a pitcher, or something else hard and heavy, aiming for the head and not always missing. And Merlin just standing there, maybe ducking but often caught off guard, making some smartass comment as if it were fun. And Arthur laughing it all off and calling it horseplay.

"You don't throw things nearly so often anymore."

Arthur ticked and stared at him, incredulous. That was his justification? "Are you mental?"

And Merlin grinned – he grinned, all cheek and nervous hints of laughter in his voice. "Probably."

"It's not funny!" Arthur didn't realize he'd crossed the room until Merlin reared back with his arm raised to shield his face, startled by Arthur's fury. "And what about his then?" Arthur jabbed trembling fingers at his own neck, watching Merlin mirror the motion, albeit more gently and with a look of confusion. "Are you going to excuse this too?"

Merlin blinked and mumbled a few non-syllables before replying, "You were drunk."

Arthur just looked at him, because he couldn't understand this. Merlin wasn't stupid. He wasn't without pride. But looking at him now, listening to it, Arthur wouldn't have been able to tell. "How far would you have let me go?"

Merlin shook his head. "Arthur, what – "

All but in Merlin's face now, Arthur demanded, "Just now – what would you have let me do?" He waved a hand at the bed, unable to name what he'd done on there because he didn't know what it was, really.

Merlin's face pulled down at the edges, as if he couldn't comprehend the question or why Arthur needed to ask it. "Whatever you wanted." As if that were obvious. As if it were a foregone conclusion – gods, he didn't even stop to think about it before he answered.

Arthur couldn't fathom it – how Merlin could simply stand there and say that, and mean it so completely. It was awful, the raw faith that he had in Arthur – it was the most true thing that Arthur had ever seen. Honest and open and fragile like a moth, and Arthur could crush it if he wanted to. Merlin would let him. Why would anyone give Arthur that kind of power? I don't want you whoring yourself out. Not even to the king. But isn't that essentially exactly what he did, every day, just serving Arthur?

Merlin shook his head and Arthur saw a mirror there of his own confusion over the other's words. But Merlin seemed to see something in Arthur's behavior that made sense because the tight consternation smoothed into a sympathetic haze. "Why have I been sleeping in your bed?"

"Because…" Arthur struggled for words that he would be able to say, but came up empty. He raised his hand and traced Merlin's hairline, disturbed by the stillness on Merlin's face – the placidity of his posture where he stood, as if Arthur weren't acting like a lunatic. As if he already knew what they were both going on about. Arthur's fingertips probed at the thin line of scar tissue running down from brow to temple and Merlin's breath puffed soft against Arthur's wrist – evidence of life. He thought about sitting huddled against the dark, listening for the screech and swoop of dragon wings and watching Merlin's breath, barely there, clouding the metal of a vambrace over and over and over…

The pounding startled them both apart. Arthur flung an irritated glance at the door and then took a deep and calming breath in an effort to look as if he were hiding anything. When he looked up, Merlin wore an expression that marked him guilty as hell. It took a moment for Arthur to comprehend why, and then he recalled the state of his chambers. It still smelled like charred wood and smoke, and magic, and while the dust, shards and crumbled mess of things scattered on the floor could have been explained away easily enough, the small tree growing out of where the fruit bowl used to sit on his dining table could not. He blinked at it a few times for good measure because honestly… How had he missed that?

"We need to do something about the tree."

Arthur cocked his head and moved only as much as he had to in order to peer sidelong at Merlin. "There are only like half a dozen apples on it."

Merlin's eyes flickered around and then landed, narrowed, on Arthur's shoulder. Or somewhere near it. "What difference does that make? It's still a tree growing in your table."

"There were only a half dozen in the fruit bowl," Arthur explained. Though he probably could have done a better job of making his point, if Merlin's wide eyes and half-twisted mouth were any indication of how stupid he sounded. He huffed at Merlin. "You grew me an entire tree just to hang the same number of apples off of it that I had before."

Merlin started to shake his head, probably in disbelief, and then merely blinked at him. Also in disbelief. Probably. "Do you want me to grow you more apples?"

"Yes! You grew a bloody tree for nothing! I have the exact same number of apples, but now there's a tree in my table – where am I supposed to eat them? At least make the tree worth something!"

Merlin flubbed something that didn't quite resolve into words, and then he stared at the tree again in disbelief. One of the leaves twisted a bit in a draft that blew from the corners of the room and fell off. They both looked at it, and then Merlin burst out with, "I made you a bloody tree!"

Arthur scoffed, but he could feel the goofy lines coming out in his face, totally inappropriate to the situation. "A shoddy tree," he allowed, fighting to keep a straight face.

Merlin's eyes waxed wider, and then he reconsidered the tree, glared at Arthur, and raised a palm to face it. "I'll give you a shoddy tree."

"Don't – " Arthur grabbed his arm, alarmed. " – make it better. It'll just be harder to explain."

A mutinous gleam – somewhat amber in color – came into Merlin's eyes and another dozen apples budded, swelled, and fell in a rush of thunks from the branches.

"Merlin!"

Several apples rolled innocently off of the table and Merlin smiled at Arthur. "I strive to give my king everything he desires."

Arthur opened his mouth to retort, but he only managed to click something in the back of his throat before the knocking came again, harder this time and accompanied by a muffled, Sire? Arthur swore, tore at the bedding twisted in a wreck all over the bed, and threw a sheet over the tree.

"Oh, that's much better."

"Shut up, Merlin."

"Now it just looks like a tree with a sheet over it. How ever will they figure it out?"

"Shut up. You're a damn menace." Arthur fiddled with the sheet, threw up his hands, and then looked at Merlin. "Well?" He threw his hands about, and when all Merlin did was shrug, clueless, Arthur hissed, "Answer the bloody door!"

"Oh!" Merlin looked at the door, the tree again, and Arthur once more for good measure, then shook his head on his way to the door as if to wonder how this became his life. Arthur followed him for no good reason and tried to block the view into the room without being obvious or suspicious about it, while Merlin looked a mixture of smug and irritated.

Another flurry of knocks sounded out as Merlin lifted the latch and opened the door just far enough to see who was there. A chambermaid's face appeared at the jamb, her features edging on a panic, and she let out a huge breath of relief upon seeing them. "Sire! I'm so sorry. It's just, no one has collected any meals for you today, and when no one answered – "

"It's quite all right," Arthur told her. "And we're fine. I mean, I'm fine. Merlin is just…also fine." He heard another thump of an apple falling and leaned his elbow up on the edge of door with a nonchalant smile. Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you fine?"

The maid stuttered and took a step back. "Um. Yes, sire. Thank you, sire. Shall I have someone bring up your dinner?" She eyed first his state of near undress, and then Merlin's.

Oh, that was going to start rumors. Arthur widened his smile, and the girl quailed a bit. "That would be lovely, thank you."

The girl nodded, and in Arthur's periphery, Merlin rolled his eyes. "Also," the girl stammered, "the physician is looking for Merlin. There's a, um…there was an incident."

Arthur straightened abruptly. "What happened."

"Oh, nothing! That is, it was only one person. She, um…forgive me, sire. She'll see only Merlin. Sire."

Arthur balked, but before he could made some crass remark or insult Merlin's prowess with women and then tease him about it, Merlin said, "Is it Elise again?"

The maid bit her lip and nodded. "I'm sorry, it's just she won't let the other physician treat her, and her mum is with her saying the same thing."

"Who's Elise?"

Merlin barely glanced at Arthur as he hurried to retrieve his boots and clothes. "The miller's daughter, sire. It's a delicate matter."

"What would you know about women's delicate matters?" And then Arthur cleared his throat and stepped back from the door as he was treated to two rather frosty glares. "Right, well. You'd better get on then."

It seemed that Merlin only just refrained from calling him an arse as he sniffed and left the room. The maid curtsied stiffly and mumbled something about sending George up with a tray, and then also left without waiting to be dismissed. Arthur pursed his lips and screwed his mouth up to one side as he closed the door. Another apple clunked to the tabletop and rolled away, and Arthur sighed at the ceiling because really. There was a tree growing out of his table, his room smelled like a smokehouse, and somehow, he was the one feeling chagrined. It was probably justified.

 _"I still can't believe how lucky I was."_

 _Arthur contemplated Guinevere at the other end of the table. He could understand that she might be upset over the attempted assassination, and the subsequent quick and bloody routing when the Sarum's men tried to avenge their fallen leader, but she wasn't acting the way Arthur expected. She was quiet, contemplative in a way that was almost sullen, and she hadn't gone to even see the wounded, much less help tend to them the way she normally would. Even now when he spoke, she looked away, and it wasn't a lingering fear at what could have happened that day which marred her features. No, it echoed the expression she'd worn at the round table when Arthur looked up from the bolt in the Sarum's back: impatience or frustration, maybe. There wasn't any concern for Arthur's safety, or anyone else's. She simply looked as if something carefully planned had gone wrong, which of course it had, but Arthur wasn't sure anymore that they were both lamenting the disruption of the same something. And it confused him, and that made him short._

 _"I owe that boy my life, and I don't know who he was, or where he's from." Guinevere watched him attentively as he spoke but Arthur wasn't sure that he felt comfortable with the manner in which she did it. He glanced past his shoulder instead, to where Merlin seemed to be taking an awfully long time to prepare their dinner plates. "We need to make sure we give him a decent burial."_

 _Merlin's head came up from the food tray and he half turned toward Arthur. His voice sounded stuffy when he replied, "I'll do that."_

 _It was not at all like Merlin; there was a cold, pinched formality to it that Arthur was not accustomed to. That, and there had been an unusual number of my lord's and sire's peppered into pretty much everything that Merlin had said for weeks now. As a rule, he wasn't deferential to Arthur, and the Good Servant act grated. Merlin hadn't even smiled in ages, and his face was starting to resemble the backend of a cat. Arthur resolved to tell him that if he didn't snap out of this soon._

 _Merlin turned with plates in his hands. "If you'll allow me the time?" The look he gave Arthur at that was brief, but rife with all kinds of things that normal servants were, and Merlin was not. It was distant, as if Arthur were just the king. As if they were strangers._

 _This was really starting to get on Arthur's nerves. He hadn't done anything allegedly prattish that he was aware of, so why was Merlin acting like this? Offended or something, or just…not Merlin. Arthur should be getting cheek right now about how Merlin leaves him for two days, and already someone tries to kill him. And the whole girl thing just made no sense, really. Since when did Merlin have any interest whatsoever in girls? And normal men got happy and stupid with a new girl in their lives; Merlin should be acting even more of an idiot and grinning like a gormless moron, not…whatever the hell this was. He wasn't even a little bit relaxed. And where did the boy come from, if Merlin spent two days with a girl? Or was it not actually a girl he'd gone to visit? That thought was…interesting. And odd. Just…Arthur didn't like the idea one bit._

 _Arthur stared blandly at the sleeve of Merlin's jacket as a plate clattered onto the table before him. Mostly just to get a rise out of him, Arthur quipped, "Oh. So…you can go and visit that girl again." He didn't quite look at Merlin when he said it, but he didn't have to. What he did see, too clearly, was Guinevere raise her eyes, falsely demure where she sat brooding. It was the look of someone about to be caught out, and that was just… Were the two of them conspiring over this supposed love affair?_

 _Well, yes – because Guinevere had kept it a secret from even Arthur, but really. Arthur was starting to wonder if there was any girl at all, from the way the two of the were shooting each other calculating glances whenever the other wasn't looking. It was disconcerting._

 _Merlin staggered a bit on his way down the length of the table to place Guinevere's plate. "What?"_

 _"Girl," Arthur drawled, and smirked a bit to try to convey to both of them that he didn't appreciate the subterfuge._

 _Merlin scoffed, as if this were the one thing that took the cake, as it were, on an already shitty day. "Don't have one."_

 _Arthur narrowed his eyes, but kept them on his plate, because he could tell when Merlin was lying, and while there was concealment in there somewhere, it wasn't a lie. Oh, gods, what if that boy really was the 'girl' he'd gone to see. "That's not what Guinevere tells me."_

 _When Arthur looked up, Guinevere was giving him that wide eyed warning look that meant he should shut up before he ruined some bit of delicate diplomacy, but behind him, he could veritably hear Merlin go still. There was no guilt in the line of his back though when Arthur veered his head in that direction to peer over his shoulder again. He'd straightened, and seemed to be in the middle of realizing something. The look to which he treated Guinevere when he turned around, water pitcher at the ready…Arthur had seen that expression on other men's faces when forced to maintain a civil front – a façade of fake congeniality broken by sidelong, narrow-eyed glances because for whatever reason – propriety or politics or subterfuge – they couldn't say what they really meant. People didn't regard their friends, or their monarchs, like that._

 _Guinevere twisted her head in an attempt to appear coy, maybe, and Merlin just looked at her as if to tell her that he knew exactly what she was on about. There may have been a vague sort of threat there, or just impotent dislike. Arthur thought – no, he knew – that the two of them were friends. Weren't they? Merlin loved Guinevere, sort of. In the way of siblings, certainly. He had been the only one standing up for her when Arthur banished her – the only one trying to talk Arthur around, and he'd always seemed so enamored of the idea of Arthur's true love for a serving girl, so what on earth –_

 _"So," Arthur butted in. "Why don't you tell us all about her?" He tapped his goblet to regain Merlin's attention, and also to break the staring contest going on between the room's other inhabitants before one of them did or said something unwise._

 _Arthur could detect something ominous in the way Merlin slid his eyes and posture both away from Guinevere and down toward the pitcher as he poured out Arthur's water. But he kept his body angled toward Guinevere, as if not to show her his back. Arthur stared at the side of his head for a moment, irrationally irritated when it seemed Merlin might not look back at him, but then his eyes did strafe Arthur on their way back down the table toward Guinevere. There was a frightening clarity there, and Arthur wished he knew what it meant._

 _Merlin strode alongside the table to pour Guinevere's water next. It was a languid thing, the way he moved when he watched her, but in the manner that snakes were languid while coiled waiting in the grass. It was cocky, which Arthur had never seen in Merlin before. Merlin knew something and he wanted Guinevere to see that, and Arthur would bet his crown that this – whatever this was – had nothing to do with any girl. The look on his face… Arthur knew that Merlin was no longer a gangly country boy. He wasn't a child or an idiot, but this? That was the look knights wore picking up a thrown gauntlet, droll as if saying, All right, you want to do this? We'll do this then._

 _Merlin replied, "Right," to Arthur, but everything behind it was meant for Guinevere. Contempt. I see you. That was the sorcerer, Arthur realized, watching Merlin smirk at Guinevere. It wasn't kind – it wasn't even any kind of challenge, it was just there, a naked fact: she only still lived right now by his mercy. That was the man who kept killing the bad people Arthur couldn't, and damn the consequences – the man who stood behind Arthur wearing a mask of his own skin, lending lie to the idea that Merlin – goofy, bumbling, faithful country boy Merlin with the ridiculous ears and a grin that lit up rooms with his cheek – had any more innocence left in him than Arthur did. That was the Merlin he didn't really know._

 _Guinevere bobbed her eyebrows at Merlin as if she couldn't see the way he all but stalked her where she sat. She was playful, as if this were just another day and she had no idea what the issue was – that she…that she had lied. To the king. To Gaius. Why – why would she do that? And Merlin just poured and smiled in a way that jarred Arthur for its lack of teeth and open malice, because that was what Merlin's expression all but screamed, and how could Guinevere not see it?_

 _Arthur blinked, suspicious and on guard now, his limbs looser for it. He raised his goblet, but before he sipped, he added, "And why you're walking with a limp." And it only then occurred to him to truly wonder at the logistics of two days of absence followed by a sudden appearance with a strange boy in tow to stop Arthur's assassination literally at the last possible moment. What on earth had Merlin been doing? Because he must have known – he showed back up to the citadel injured, harried, leaning on a stick for gods' sake, as if he couldn't spare time for anything else, and what – ran straight up to the balcony where a sharp shooter just happened to be waiting with a loaded crossbow?_

 _Guinevere swallowed and peered up at Merlin from under lowered lashes, and Merlin… He didn't smile, exactly, but there was definitely a dark sort of humor to his expression. Arthur wanted to defend his wife. He did, but something about all of this – it gave him pause. It occurred to him that he must have known something himself – he must have sensed the wrongness before now – because throughout this entire exchange, he made no move to censor Merlin for his behavior. For the threat and insolence in his posture – no. It didn't offend Arthur's sensibility to see his manservant treating the queen in such a manner. Rather, it vindicated something in him – in Arthur._

 _Arthur looked back to his wife. He looked to his wife, while she regarded Merlin. And when she turned back to Arthur, he finally noticed that Guinevere didn't seem to be the only thing looking back. There was something dead in there, something hollow. And then she smiled at him, sweet._

 _Arthur paced the halls of his castle quietly. He wasn't sneaking around, per se, but he also didn't need anyone noticing him; it might get back to Guinevere at some point. The thought felt traitorous, but Arthur couldn't stop his thoughts whirring ever since the strained and awkward dinner. Merlin had not explained himself, or his limp, though Arthur had at least noticed that his leg was bandaged and that some spots of dark rust had seeped through the white linen. He hadn't come back from clearing the plates either, and Arthur wanted to know why as much as he wanted to simply blind himself and forget the terrible notions creeping through his mind._

 _It was Tyr Seward, of all the things, that came to Arthur first. Tyr was loyal and innocent, possessed of the kind of simple-mindedness that Merlin only faked well. He was utterly devoted to his mother and proud of his work for Arthur. He was…refreshing. And Guinevere had advocated his execution on the basis of a dearth of real evidence that even Uther might have paused at. That was not Guinevere. It may have been the advice of any other queen, but Arthur had not married any other queen, and Guinevere was kind. He had been surprised to hear her push for the boy's death, but he had shrugged it off at the time. Rationalized it. Arthur's life was in danger, Arthur was the king, so the danger must be removed. He had grown up with judgements like that coming from the mouth of his father. It had been odd, but familiar enough to overlook._

 _What was not familiar, and what he should not have brushed off, was learning that the first (and only) person to accuse Merlin of poisoning Arthur those many weeks ago was Guinevere. Of course, Merlin was a sorcerer and an accomplished liar (apparently), and a dozen other things that might have made him suspect…to any other person. But Guinevere knew Merlin – loved and trusted him, and looked on him fondly like a little brother, younger as he was. She well knew the ferocity of Merlin's loyalty – she had said as much, that it wasn't normal and that Arthur needed to take heed of it before Merlin got himself killed protecting one of them, because Merlin would never say no to Arthur when it mattered, and he would never save his own life if even the slightest bit of Arthur's were at risk. And yet she accused him? Why?_

 _Or was it exactly because Merlin would give his own life to save Arthur – kill whoever he needed to, incur Arthur's wrath or his hatred, stand up to anyone in any way he could, noble or not – queen or not – if it meant he could save Arthur?_

 _It was a simple equation, really – Arthur should have worked it through long before now. Only two people could have accessed Arthur's food between the taste testing and Arthur consuming it: Merlin, who still, despite Arthur's railing, insisted on doing the tasting himself; and Guinevere, who ate the meal with him and was not, herself, exposed to the poison. Merlin served them both from the same platter. If there were poison in it then, they should have both consumed it. That meant that the poison was administered after Merlin served it, and Guinevere was the only one there to do it._

 _Of course, Merlin could have put something on Arthur's food after plating it, while his back was turned and his body blocked Arthur's line of sight, but Arthur couldn't imagine that. What did it say about Arthur that he held his servant's fealty above that of his own beloved wife? And yet he did; he held Merlin's loyalty up like a beacon with the same fervor he saw in Merlin's face when he called Arthur prat and clotpole and the Once and Future King. It was sacrosanct._

 _Arthur rounded the corner into the hall leading to the physician's quarters, the torches here spaced farther apart and burning more smoke than flame. He took care not to trip and then slowed as he approached the infirmary, because he could hear soft voices, and following fast on that, the unmistakable sound of someone retching. It would be just his luck if Gaius had a patient in there – some late-night drunken lord or knight emptying himself of enough mead to poison an ox. Gwaine, maybe._

 _Arthur snorted at the absurdity of that; Gwaine would have outdrank the ox, and he'd never waste ale by letting his body expel it._

 _As he drew up to the door, Arthur heard Gaius shuffling around, and then, "Here, drink this."_

 _"I can't."_

 _Arthur went still, because that was Merlin's voice, tight with discomfort, and he sounded miserable._

 _"It's just ground ginger in water. It'll settle your stomach."_

 _Arthur heard Merlin gasp hard and then whimper before another round of retching echoed out harsh in the darkness of the corridor. It sounded dry and painful._

 _"It won't stay down," Merlin croaked. Gaius must have tried pushing the ginger on him again._

 _"Just sip it," Gaius insisted. "Wet your throat with it, nothing more."_

 _Arthur listened to Merlin heave a few rapid, deep breaths, and then he let out a pitiful groan. "I have to tend Arthur for the night."_

 _"You shouldn't be working at all," Gaius insisted. "You can barely stand. And I need to look at that wound."_

 _"I'm fine."_

 _Arthur wanted to be angry. He wanted to storm in and demand that Merlin explain himself, and get treatment, and confess to…something. Render the world whole again and deliver his wife, and Arthur's trust in her, back to him. And he was angry, but it didn't have a focus; it just roiled inside of him, impotent and resilient like plague, and more than anything else in that moment, he wanted Merlin not to be ill or hurt so that he could direct that anger at Merlin and not feel like an absolute cad for doing it._

 _Gaius sighed and murmured, "Merlin…" as if he knew better than to argue._

 _"What would I tell Arthur?" Merlin demanded, his voice thread and raw from throwing up. "He'll notice I'm not there. I'm surprised he isn't down here already yelling and throwing things at my head." It was bitter, that, and Arthur wondered when dealing with him had become such a chore. He had thought that Merlin enjoyed it, complaints and sass aside. Why else would he have stayed so long? They had a fractious friendship, granted, but there was something real in there too._

 _After a hesitation, Gaius ventured, "The truth?"_

 _Arthur knocked quickly, because he wasn't sure that he wanted to hear Merlin's answer. Yes, here are all the things he kept hidden, which Arthur could have previously only guessed at best – layers upon layers like deposits of sediment in a lake bed – or no…because the only man who had never harbored ambition or ulterior motives toward Arthur didn't trust him at all._

 _The infirmary grew quiet like a forest when a wolf prowled past, and then Gaius rustled around to answer the door. He looked surprised first, and then wary before his eyes went hard as ice chips. "Sire? Merlin is not well. I can send someone else to tend you this evening."_

 _Arthur nodded but pushed the door open, and Gaius aside with it. "Leave us. I need to speak to Merlin alone." He had no doubt that Gaius knew everything that Merlin did about what was going on here, but he didn't trust Gaius to tell him the entire truth, or to let Merlin tell him, either willingly or through the betrayal of his own face. "Now, please."_

 _Gaius made an admirable attempt not to look like he was glaring at Arthur, but he did. Then he glanced back at Merlin, who had pulled himself onto a stool at the tiny dining table in a farce of normalcy. Nothing could quite cover the stench of fresh vomit, though._

 _Arthur sucked in a slow breath and shut his eyes briefly before saying, "I can tend myself for the night, but I need to speak with him."_

 _Gaius's face offered a few nonspecific twitches, failed to resolve into any expression at all, and then he bowed. The stiffness of it had little to do with age. "Please do not take long, sire; he needs to rest."_

 _Arthur nodded, eyeing Merlin where he sat unsteady, propped against the table in front of him. No one said anything else until Gaius fetched a long cloak and shuffled out, closing the door behind him._

 _"Turning an old man out of his own home in the middle of the night," Merlin mused. "Very kingly of you."_

 _Arthur faced him across the length of half the room. The words were all correct – classic Merlin insolence whenever Arthur did something that normal people found inconsiderate. Even the tone was right, but Merlin's face didn't match, and it set Arthur's teeth on edge. "What happened to you?"_

 _Merlin's mouth creased, and when the smile failed to reach past his cheekbones, Arthur realized how unkind the look was. "With a girl. Like the queen said."_

 _The queen, not Gwen. Proper address, of course – Merlin's rank didn't allow him to call Guinevere by name. Or Arthur. Not that it ever discouraged him._

 _"We both know that's a load of rubbish."_

 _"Right," Merlin scoffed, but it was a harsh, mocking thing. "What girl would have me?"_

 _"That's not even the point." But yes, Arthur had thought that too in a few unkind moments because Merlin would be a terrible husband. Or at least he would be as long as Arthur lived and needed him. Arthur grimaced and paced up to the table, brushed aside a half-eaten plate of what evidently passed for food here, and sat down opposite him. Merlin looked sweaty and off color like pond scum, his neckerchief clenched in one hand and the laces on his tunic open far enough that Arthur could just glimpse the edges of the odd burn scar that marred his chest – the one Merlin hadn't had when he first entered Arthur's service. "There's something you're not telling me."_

 _Merlin pressed his lips together until the inside of his mouth caught on a canine. "I don't tell you a lot of things, sire. You usually tell me to shut up, anyway."_

 _Arthur bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself not to react with the anger that comment engendered, true or not. "Did Guinevere do this to you?"_

 _It was subtle, but it was there – the flinch. "No, my lord." And that was only a half truth._

 _Or perhaps it was just nausea, because Merlin swallowed hard and pressed his neckerchief to his mouth for a moment as if holding something down._

 _Arthur nodded at the bucket that one of them had draped with a cloth, as if that would hide the smell. "Don't let me keep you."_

 _Merlin cleared his throat and shifted, but remained where he was. When he lowered the neckerchief though, there was a sticky black stain on it, and Merlin scrubbed for a moment at his lips to remove whatever else was there._

 _Arthur furrowed his brow. "That's not blood," he said before he thought about it. It wasn't any sort of bile he'd ever seen either, and it carried an oily sheen. He looked up, because it occurred to him that what he was seeing resembled the symptoms of poisoning._

 _Merlin folded the neckerchief to hide the evidence and said nothing._

 _"You've never held back with me before." Arthur leaned his head to the side to try to catch Merlin's reluctant gaze, and then he changed tacks at the mulish look on his servant's face. "You were poisoned, weren't you. And attacked? The wound on your leg – how did you get it?"_

 _"I'm clumsy," Merlin muttered._

 _"Really?" Arthur didn't doubt that, except that Merlin could be remarkably stealthy when he really tried, and he wasn't prone to random injuries, for all that a lot of things seemed to break in his care. "Tell me the truth."_

 _"That is the truth," Merlin snapped. "I fell into a ravine. You know how I am."_

 _"Yes, I do," Arthur murmured. "Did the ravine poison you too?"_

 _"Maybe I ate some bad eggs."_

 _"You can't afford eggs," he scoffed. "Unless they were mine, and you stole them off of my plate, in which case I'd have noticed. Merlin, you can tell me."_

 _That seemed the wrong thing to say; Merlin's face twisted up in muted fury. "Really? I can tell you. Like I could tell you about Agravaine? That didn't go so well for me."_

 _Arthur started to shake his head._

 _"You threatened to exile me if I said anything against him! When have you ever listened to anything I have to say?"_

 _"I listen to you all the time." Arthur shook his head in disbelief, though more at himself for the need to defend his character against the aspersions cast by a servant, than at the words themselves. Merlin was giving things away though, whether he wanted to or not. Of all the examples he could have chosen for times when Arthur didn't listen to him about someone's motives, he chose Agravaine. A person Arthur loved. Had loved._

 _"No," Merlin shook his head and his expression turned inward in self-deprecation. "I am the last person you listen to because I'm just a servant, and a stupid one at that."_

 _Arthur shook his head and frowned into his hands clasped before him on the table. "Being a servant never stopped you speaking your mind."_

 _"Last time I told you there was a traitor in your court, you accused Gaius instead, and he nearly got killed. You left him to that because it was easier to stomach. Gaius was your father's man, and a sorcerer once. It's just good riddance. I may be slow, but I do learn."_

 _It took a moment for Arthur to blink through a haze of anger, and then of something that burned acidic and unpleasant in his gut. "I've learned too," he offered._

 _Merlin sucked in a breath and looked away as it blew back out._

 _"You killed him," Arthur said. "Didn't you? My uncle? He followed us into the caves, you went back, and no one ever saw him again."_

 _Merlin inhaled again, his eyes sliding shut, but he gave away nothing more._

 _"How many people have you killed for me?" Perverse question, that. But he had suspicions, and the one that niggled hardest at the back of his mind was that if Guinevere were a threat, Merlin would remain true to form and kill her. For Arthur. And hate himself after._

 _"I've lost count," Merlin sneered. He rubbed his neckerchief at his nose and looked away, breathing harder than he should for even a heated conversation. It was honestly the closest Arthur thought he'd ever been to hearing something straight from Merlin the sorcerer. There was no brag there, however – no aggrandizement. It was a response born of weariness and regret. Arthur wondered if the latter were simply because he'd killed, or because he'd done it for Arthur._

 _Arthur wobbled where he sat and glanced around the room as if his thoughts might be floating there in disarray for him grab. "Did you know about Morgana too?"_

 _Merlin blinked up at him, his eyes empty and his face mostly blank. His eyes gave him away, though; they always did. Too clear. Too blue. Shiny. It was answer enough. Arthur remembered walking into the throne room after defeating Cenred's forces and the undead army. I need to tell you something about Morgana. And then Uther had announced her the hero of the day, and Merlin hadn't even tried to talk to him about her again. Arthur was at least self-aware enough to know that if Merlin had tried, Arthur would have done worse than just not listen. But it begged the question: in the months between then, and her public betrayal, what had she done, or tried to do, to Merlin? Because there was no way she didn't see him down in the crypts too, and he was pants at subterfuge. Morgana would have known him for a threat, magic or not._

 _"My wife," Arthur continued, and had to stop for the lump that threatened to steal his speech. "Guinevere," he whispered. "Do you know something about her too?"_

 _Merlin hitched a breath and dropped his gaze in a vain attempt to hide the moisture welling up along the lower rim of his eyelid. "Gaius shouldn't be out this late. His joints bother him."_

 _"Then give me a straight answer, and he can come back." Arthur tried to wait him out with silence, but Merlin's face remained stubbornly set in a poorly constructed mask of ignorance. Finally, Arthur tried, "I know that I have reacted poorly in the past when you warned me of a danger I didn't want to see, but I need to know. Tell me what really happened."_

 _A tense silence bled out between them, Merlin's face half hidden in the shadows where he kept his head bowed over hands that restlessly worried at the scrap of neckerchief stained with not-blood. Finally, Merlin's voice sounded out dull from near his hands, "I fell into a ravine."_

 _Arthur stared at him. "And this alleged girl you say you don't have? Tell me about her."_

 _There was no way for Merlin to answer that without calling the queen a liar, because Arthur knew him. He knew that Merlin didn't have a girl. And while he might believe that Merlin would disappear for a couple of days without telling Arthur (because he'd done it before), he did not, for a single moment, believe that Merlin would fail to tell Gaius. And Gaius had wanted a search party sent out. There was no girl._

 _Arthur leaned closer over the table, but Merlin kept his eyes on his hands and his mouth shut. "You have a way of knowing things. Your…funny feelings. If you don't want to tell me what happened, then tell me about one of those instead."_

 _Merlin lifted his head, but only enough to stare past Arthur rather than down. "Guinevere loves you. She would never betray you."_

 _"Well, it's got to be one of you," Arthur snapped. He could feel his temper rising up from beneath the surface, and he hated it, but he didn't know what else to say. "Do you want to confess, then? Is that it? Tell me how it really was you who poisoned me, and you who conspired to assassinate me today? Convenient, how you were up there with the shooter, and the only other witness dead at your feet. Tell me that the reason you and Guinevere act like strangers all of a sudden is because she was right about you but doesn't know how to convince me. Tell me, Merlin. You've been walking around here like a ghost for weeks – you don't even complain anymore. That's suspicious, don't you think? Maybe you're the one leaking secrets to our enemies. Maybe that's where you've been for two bloody days."_

 _Merlin barely reacted, and perhaps that should have clued Arthur into the fact that Merlin expected so little of Arthur in regards to himself that he wasn't even surprised to be accused in turn. To be the messenger Arthur shot. Merlin's response came out dull and devoid of any actual agreement. "If you say so, my lord."_

 _"Dammit, Merlin!" Arthur slammed a fist against the table, and felt a sick gratification at how Merlin flinched because at least that was honest. He let out a weary breath and tried to remember the hollow feeling that Guinevere had left him with – words read from scripts of how Guinevere should have been. "Is she threatening you?" But that wouldn't stop Merlin – he had very few weak points, actually, and himself was not one of them. "Is she threatening Gaius?"_

 _"No, my lord."_

 _Arthur was on his feet before he thought about it, and Merlin scrambled to rise as well just a beat too late. He was hot to the touch, disturbingly so, with clammy skin and an unhealthy fever sheen, but Arthur didn't take heed of that. "I am your king! It is treason to lie to me!"_

 _Merlin gasped a bit and Arthur found himself holding up more weight than he expected when Merlin sagged and then tried to angle away from him. At the last moment, Arthur rotated him and let him flop toward the floor, where he made a visible effort to keep from passing out and failed. Arthur rocked back, shocked and dissatisfied to find himself holding the limp body of his servant, but it allowed him a moment to truly take stock of him too. Merlin was thinner than he should have been – again – and through the open collar of his shirt, Arthur could see other bruises and marks. He considered for a moment that what he wanted to do might be some kind of violation, but Merlin belonged to him, and he had a right to see how others had mistreated him._

 _When Arthur shifted Merlin and lifted his tunic, he saw an awful array of fresh marks, deep purple and mottled all along one side of Merlin's body. There were a few cuts too, but only superficial. A brief search turned up the thin line of a scab hidden along Merlin's hairline, surrounded by a lighter bruise that spread into his scalp. He may have actually fallen into a ravine, but to judge by the coloration of the bruises, it would have to have been a far fall. Arthur breathed through whatever softer, amorphous anger was now crowding out his earlier fury and worked Merlin's hand open to extract the crumpled neckerchief. The substance that Merlin had been coughing up appeared black with an oily sheen in the low candlelight, as he'd thought, and like no bodily fluid or bile he'd ever seen. He twisted to set the cloth on the table behind him, and then contemplated the slackened lines of the face of the liar he trusted with his life. Merlin had every reason to betray him, and never had. How was that the reason Arthur couldn't seem to doubt him now? How was that the thing that made him trust Merlin over even his own wife?_

 _Arthur huffed to himself. He had no answers, no clarity, nothing except the certainty that Merlin knew something, and appeared to have almost died because of it. Another boy had died. And Guinevere was lying to cover Merlin's absence. Guinevere…his beloved queen…seemed to want Merlin dead. If this was her, and Arthur thought it was, at least in part, then she had tried twice now to get rid of both him and Merlin. In passing, it was interesting how she apparently needed to get Merlin out of the way in order to make a credible attempt on Arthur._

 _A log popped behind him in the fireplace and Arthur swiveled to check that nothing had rolled out. It looked fine, if not very bright, so he looked at the door and raised his voice to call Gaius in the hopes that he was simply lurking out there, waiting. "We need help in here!"_

 _It took a moment, but indeed, Gaius opened the door, and then he drew a sharp breath at the scene inside. "What happened?" He hurried over as much as he could and his joints creaked as he knelt. "Merlin?" He left Merlin where he was, flopped limp over Arthur's lap with his head lolling back in the crook of Arthur's elbow. After feeling for breath and pulse, the rest of his apprentice registered, and Gaius touched at the bruising still exposed along the entirety of one side of Merlin's body. "Oh."_

 _Arthur glanced up from the contrast of Gaius's pale, red-knuckled fingers against mottled purple. "You didn't know?"_

 _Gaius shook his head without thinking. "I wasn't aware of the extent…" He palpated along Merlin's ribs, and then back to press over his kidney. "This is not minor," he breathed. "He wouldn't let me look at it, with everyone else needing attention after the assassination attempt. I haven't even tended his leg yet."_

 _"He said that he fell into a ravine."_

 _Again, Gaius shook his head, lips pursed. "If he slipped, there would be scrapes – marks on his hands and fingers, his arms – and the bruising would spread more evenly over his torso from rolling down the side and catching himself up at the bottom. This was just a straight fall and a hard landing. I doubt he was even conscious for it." Gaius continued feeling around Merlin's ribcage and the knobs of his spine, oblivious, apparently, to the implications of what he'd said. "I need him on the cot, sire. If you would be so kind?"_

 _Arthur jolted himself from his thoughts and blinked to regain his bearings in the room. "Of course." He resituated Merlin's upper body and then lifted, taking the majority of the weight while Gaius picked up his feet. They settled him on his side on Gaius's cot, facing away, and Gaius moved into the work area to start gathering things for a treatment. Arthur remained where he was, bent over Merlin's body and staring at the blemished skin beside where his hand rested in the divot of Merlin's waist. There was a mark there he had not seen before – a puckered mark like a star. It was old by several years at least, but he still recognized it from seeing it fresh on dead bodies. "This is a serket sting."_

 _Gaius paused in mixing something into a thick pace. He relaxed when he saw what Arthur was looking at. "It's old, but yes."_

 _"I thought that their sting was fatal." Arthur ran his thumb over the mark to better map its contours and commit its placement to memory, low and off-center near the coccyx. It just missed the spine._

 _Merlin's skin tightened as if plucked like a string under the scrape of Arthur's fingernail, and he grunted as he shifted away. Arthur sucked in an abrupt breath and lifted his hand before Merlin could wake._

 _"Generally, yes," Gaius agreed, and it took a moment for Arthur to remember what he had asked. "He was very lucky to survive. I imagine the serket had recently stung something else just before him, and that its venom was therefor less potent."_

 _Arthur glanced aside without moving his head. Gaius was watching him carefully between adding things to his bowl and grinding it all together. It wasn't clear whether or not that response were a deflection, but the sting was certainly a subject off limits, to judge by the closed quality of Gaius's face. Voice droll by design, Arthur replied, "How fortunate."_

 _"Indeed, sire." Gaius continued to eye him though. Well. At least they understood each other, then. "You should go to your rest."_

 _"Rest?" Arthur snorted and then sobered quickly. "With a viper in my bed," he muttered._

 _"Sire?"_

 _Arthur looked up to find Gaius regarding him with concern. "Nothing." He waved it off. "I'm just disturbed, still, by the events of today." He could ask Guinevere to sleep in the queen's chambers, which she did often enough anyway. Plead a late-evening meeting, or paperwork to divert suspicion. Arthur looked down again as Gaius began spreading a thick, pungent salve across the curve of Merlin's ribcage, just where the bone curled around his flank. Merlin breathed erratically at the touch, and Arthur stepped back to avoid seeing too much of it. Guinevere even now waited for Arthur in their bed – the shell of a doll with the inside scooped out, formed into the shape of his wife and filled up with lies and malice, laughing at the gullible, smitten king. All he wanted was to not leave this room, even if the only Merlin here were the one who seemed harder than he should and saddened by his own disillusionment. "You'll take care of him?"_

 _Gaius raised his head, his features soft the way they used to be when Arthur was young. "For as long as I am able. Goodnight, sire."_

 _Arthur nodded and slipped past him. He had almost reached the door when he heard Gaius say, "He would die for you."_

 _It was quiet, as if they were not a half dozen yards away from each other speaking through the expanse of a handful of candles in a drafty tower. A throwaway comment that he might not have heard at all. Arthur twisted his torso and looked back at the stoop of an old man hiding his face in the shadows. He wondered when Gaius had grown so old – when the years had bent his back and compressed him into this weary figure. They stared at each other and Arthur saw fear, and sadness, as if Gaius had already mourned the loss of a boy he loved to soften the blow when he inevitably had to endure his death._

 _"Yes," Arthur replied, his tone the same. Neither of them needed to say anything more._

Arthur sighed and stretched to relieve the kink in his back. He heard and felt a few crackles between his shoulder blades and swallowed a groan of relief, holding his arms up and rolling his shoulders back to bask in the sweet strain and ache of overtired bones and muscles. He could feel his age creeping up on him but it felt comfortable, like an acknowledgement that he'd gotten this far. Above him, the ceiling beams bore marks from the flames of the candles blazing like torches the night before, but George had scrubbed the scorches from the stone at least. One could hardly tell that a fire had broken out just a few hours ago.

George was still in Arthur's chambers, sweeping out corners of the room and flattening himself to get under various pieces of furniture. His dedication to cleanliness was disturbing. When he appeared earlier with the supper that the maid had promised, he hardly reacted to the mess. Or to the tree draped entirely obviously in a sheet on his table. Arthur took his meal on his desk, allowed George to assist him with washing and dressing, and then just watched the man flutter about, picking things up.

"May I get you anything else, sire?"

Arthur blinked and shifted his eyes from the untouched tree to George. "No. You may go."

George inclined his head, and then hesitated, which was out of character for him, considering he'd been dismissed. "I apologize for the smell of the room, sire. I have aired everything and changed the linens, but the scent of magic has not yet dissipated."

Arthur tried not to let the panic seep into his features, king or no. He could feel his cheeks go chill, though, and figured he had probably paled in spite of himself. "You will say a word of this to no one. Do I make myself clear?"

George merely nodded and said, "Of course not, sire." As if in a realm where magic was a capital offense, it still never crossed his mind to speak of this. Even Arthur being king did not excuse that. Did it? "I shall come back to tend the fire shortly and collect the plates, and I have a solution which may assist in concealing the charred marks in the ceiling beams." He bowed, perfectly proper and unaffected, and then just…left. He walked right past a tree growing out of a table, roots poking out from beneath the sheet to curl around the edges of the wood, and left.

Arthur shook his head in disbelief, and then it occurred to him to wonder how a servant, ostensibly sheltered from most of what happened outside the small space of the royal household, came to recognize the specific scent of magic so well that when he encountered and spoke of it, it was with easy familiarity. It had taken years for Arthur to figure out what that scent was, however often he had been around it courtesy of Merlin having no self-preservation skills whatsoever. How did George just know what it was without blinking?

After finishing his food, Arthur belted on his sword and shrugged into his long sleeveless riding coat for warmth, the leather supple from use and the oils Merlin periodically used to clean it. Arthur fingered the edge near his collar and pictured Merlin bent close to the seam, the coat spread out flat over the table as he rubbed the oil in with a cloth, so completely focused on the task that the rest of the world may not even exist. The whole room smelled of cedar whenever he did that, and Merlin always seemed calm afterwards, as if the act were some kind of meditation for him.

Arthur found Sir Geoffrey scribbling away in the library, no matter the late hour. As usual, Geoffrey held a hand up to silence his visitor until after he had finished whatever he was writing, and Arthur smiled because some things never did change. He waited patiently until Geoffrey looked up and said, "Oh! Sire, my apologies."

"No harm," Arthur told him. "Shouldn't you be at dinner or abed by now?"

Geoffrey glanced up at the darkened windows far away at the end of a row of bookshelves. "Ah. Yes, I imagine I should."

Arthur snuffed at that, amused. "Actually, I'm glad I found you still here. I meant to speak with you earlier. You and Gaius were close. I imagine his passing has been hard on you."

"Hm." Geoffrey smile a bit vacantly, his eyes focused on something not in the room with them. "We were neither of us young men anymore." The expression faded and he looked down. "I wonder if Alice knows."

Arthur raised a brow but remained silent on that, even though he suspected that Geoffrey referred to the sorceress who had tried to kill Uther. Perhaps whatever creature she had raved about had set her free. Or perhaps that was Gaius; he had clearly loved her. And Merlin's accusation against her had been reluctant enough that he hadn't even returned to his room that night; Arthur had heard him rustling about in the servant's chamber well past the last bell.

Geoffrey hummed to himself again and then looked at Arthur, inclining his head in respect as he did. "I will miss him," he admitted.

"Of course. If you need anything…" Arthur held a hand out, palm up. "You have only to ask."

"That is very kind of you, sire, but I shall be fine." Geoffrey neatened a few stray pieces of parchment and then said, "As grateful as I am for your concern, I am certain that it is not the only reason you came down here."

Arthur gave him a sheepish smile and pulled a chair over to sit. "You didn't have much to say at the last council."

They both knew that Arthur referred to the discussion of Gaius's replacement, but Geoffrey did not oblige him by taking the expected conversation. "I find that I often have little to say at council."

Very well, then; they were going to have this conversation. It was likely long overdue by now, given Arthur's reading proclivities of late. "That hardly seems credible. You are, after all, a very learned man. And yet, you keep your own thoughts so well that no one even thinks to consult you anymore. Some even insist you've gone soft in the head, but I imagine they're simply seeing what you want them to."

"Allow me to rephrase then, sire." Either Geoffrey or the chair creaked a bit as he shifted to alleviate strain on weary joints. "I find that I often have little to say that would be welcome at council."

Arthur nodded. "I can understand that. And I must thank you for indulging my research proclivities these past months."

"I hope that your highness has found it illuminating."

"I have." Arthur nipped at his bottom lip and gave up on trying to look as if he were not paying his whole attention to the conversation at hand. Geoffrey's daft-old-man persona had certainly dropped well away. Arthur remembered this man from his youth, chasing him out of the library with a stick when he knocked a shelf askew, and no matter who was the prince. Arthur folded his hands on the desktop and regarded them with a frown. "You are now likely one of the last still living who recalls a time when magic was not simply tolerated, but welcome." He glanced at the candles fluttering weakly on the table beside them, and found himself thinking of Merlin, of the vulnerability in the curl of his spine facing Arthur while he slept. "Why did you support the purge?"

Geoffrey took a deep breath. There was a lifetime contained within it. "I have very little still to lose in life," he said, voice firm, and yet there was a softness there, an ache. "That includes my life."

Arthur looked up, his brow drawing in at the center. "I'm not asking for your life. I only want the truth, Sir Geoffrey."

"Not so long past, those two things were one and the same." Several heartbeats passed while Geoffrey scrutinized his king, his gaze weighted. He took a deep breath, a preparation for battle from atop the rubble of a collapsed battlement wall. "I did not support the purge, sire."

"But you supported my father through it."

"I supported Camelot," Geoffrey corrected. "My oath upon receiving my knighthood was not to obey or indulge Uther Pendragon. It was to protect and defend Camelot. I was already past my prime as a knight when the madness started. I could not fight. So I did what I was able."

Arthur followed the direction of Geoffrey's gaze out into the stacks of books and shelves bent under the weight of parchment. "You saved the writings," Arthur realized. "Magical texts. The material you've been bringing me – is that where it came from?"

"Some of them," Geoffrey confirmed. "Others were not deemed illicit, but their access was heavily restricted."

Arthur shook his head. "Why risk your life for the sake of books?"

"Because certain knowledge, once lost, can never be regained." Geoffrey shifted again where he sat. Arthur may have mistaken it for nerves if not for the soft hiss of discomfort that Geoffrey could not quite hide. He was, after all, quite getting on in years. "I could not leave Camelot defenseless against magic, sire; I took an oath, and fear of the king could not justify breaking it. The writings had to be saved, lest we lose the knowledge and ability to defend ourselves from attack by magic. We allowed the destruction of those magical texts which held no redeeming value – instruction on necromancy and dark deeds, blood magic and the like. Even those, I regret the loss of, because we may no longer have the knowledge to counter such things if we do not know the mechanism of it. They were sacrificed, however, to avoid suspicion that too few were burned. It was sick magic, in any case. I can only pray that it stays forgotten."

Arthur nodded. "We?"

Geoffrey hesitated, but then replied, "Gaius and I collaborated to save what we could – what we must to ensure our survival."

Of course, Arthur knew that Gaius had been somewhat shifty at times, but perhaps there was good cause he had yet to become aware of. If he had defied Uther to save critical texts, what else had he used his position and favor with the crown to do? "But what good is this knowledge if there are no sorcerers left to use it?"

"Someone has been using it."

"Oh?" Arthur was seriously going to have to talk to Merlin about self-preservation if it turned out that even Geoffrey knew what he was. "And who might that be?"

"I am afraid I could not say, sire."

"Is that right." Arthur directed a flat stare at him.

Geoffrey looked down for a moment, and then met Arthur's gaze again. "I have tried to discover who it might be. He or she would have to be very powerful, and while I am certain that there is more small magic hiding all around us than you would like, I have not seen anything that resembles the power necessary for what I am convinced has been happening in Camelot."

This seemed like the truth, so Arthur relaxed. "I see. If you have found no one, then what makes you so certain that there is anyone to find at all?"

"We are still alive." Geoffrey offered nothing more, not right away. He must have thought it was obvious, what he meant, until he caught Arthur's renewed frown. "Too many threats have assailed us that could only be defeated by magic, sire. And yet, they were defeated. Magical beasts impervious to mortal blades, poisons with no known cure save magic, and your sister's attacks, of course."

"Of course." Arthur wasn't sure on all of those, but he could grant Geoffrey's belief that only magic could counter magic. "And yet, you have said nothing of this, either to my father or to me. If what you say is true, then there has been a sorcerer practicing in the very heart of Camelot. Failure to report that is treason."

"Forgive me, sire. But your father did know."

Arthur felt something in chest skip and sink. Whether it were fear or something else, he couldn't tell. "That cannot be."

Hesitant, Geoffrey offered, "Perhaps I am mistaken, sire. I am an old man – "

"You're hardly in your dodderage, Sir Geoffrey." Arthur again shuffled at the papers in front of him and then abandoned the distraction. He sank back, legs falling loose along the floor, and rested an elbow on the arm of his chair. He tapped his lips a few times, and then sat straight again. "You are calling my father a hypocrite. You are saying that he flaunted his own laws and allowed safe harbor to a sorcerer."

"Had your father any inkling of the sorcerer's identity, he would have executed him." Geoffrey shifted on his chair to better prop up his bent frame. "You are alive due to magic's intervention, and he knew it. Even he was saved by it at least once that he knew of, within your lifetime. You are correct that I imply that your father was a hypocrite, but with respect, sire, you did not have to live the life he did, or face those particular threats. The worst of the evil was already gone by the time you were old enough to know what magic was. You did not see the darkness that corrupted it at the end. But you also never had a chance to behold the beauty of it. The promise. Your father did. Whatever else he thought of it, I do still believe that he had hope, somewhere inside of him, that magic could be used for good. But he, too, was damaged, in his own way. And he could not break free from it, or from the knowledge and the horror of what he had done both with magic and against it. There is no simple explanation for anything that your father did, for good or for ill." Geoffrey shook his head in silent apology. "Uther did not harbor the sorcerer in our midst. He simply did nothing."

Much as Arthur had, up until now. He could hardly place blame on his father for doing nearly the same thing that Arthur had done with Merlin, though in thinking as much, Arthur effectively highlighted his own hypocrisy too. "I see." Arthur shook his head and looked down. So he was perhaps no better than his father, allowing magic to serve his own ends, but resolved to discard it as soon as it became…inconvenient. "I suppose I should not be surprised."

"I am sorry, sire."

"No need." Arthur pushed himself straight in the chair. "Tell me. What do you think of the vacant position of Court Physician?"

Geoffrey dithered for a moment, eyed his texts, and then faced Arthur. "Hubert is a good choice, sire. He is a competent physician."

Arthur gave an exaggerated nod. "But?"

"But I fear that it would be far less profitable for him to take the position at court. His business in the lower town, and amongst the traders, is quite lucrative. He may be resistant to an appointment."

"I see." Arthur licked his lips.

"What of Merlin, your highness?"

"What of Merlin?"

Again, Geoffrey vacillated for a moment, as if arranging his thoughts in a manner crafted to be most pleasing to the ear of a monarch. "He is suited to the position as well. He was Gaius's apprentice for eleven years, and he too is accomplished at the craft."

"Is he?" Not that Arthur necessarily doubted, but he himself had seen little of Merlin's skills in practice, other than treatment of battlefield wounds.

"I realize that your highness has not had the benefit of knowing Merlin's work," Geoffrey said, "as he tends to limit his practice to his free time. However, many speak well of his talents. I myself have found uncommon relief in his treatments, and I am told that amongst certain of the less fortunate, he is preferred even to Gaius."

Sometimes, Arthur wondered just how much he missed, being king. "What do you mean?"

"Well." Geoffrey shifted, uncomfortable. "Certainly your highness is aware that certain…ladies' complaints can be…delicate matters to handle."

Arthur tried not to let his eyebrows climb into his hairline, but he failed.

"He is said to have a professional and compassionate manner when needs exceed the skills of the midwives, and that he remains above judgement of the ladies for the manner in which they come by their troubles. Apparently, he also has a…shall I say…delicate touch? Which is often…much appreciated…in certain, erm…delicate matters?"

Arthur blinked. "Right. I think you've explained well enough." He thought, rather ridiculously and shamefully red-faced, of the woman Elise who apparently refused to be handled by anyone but Merlin.

Geoffrey sighed in relief. "Thank you, sire."

"Right." He cleared his throat. "Um."

"He is also quite generous of his time in the lower town."

"Yes, so I've noticed." Arthur shook his head to dispel the lingering image of Merlin doing physician-ly things with various doe-eyed women. "He serves the poor as Gaius did."

"Yes, sire. He has a reputation for his effectiveness, and also for his good deeds. He is known to provide food and coin to those of his patients whose sickness is from lack of nourishment." Geoffrey paused. "And he juggles for the children."

Arthur shook his head and let out a huff of laughter. "Of course he does." Then he frowned. "How much of his wages does he give away like this?"

At the sharpness in Arthur's tone, Geoffrey frowned and tried to play it off as insignificant. "I am sure it is not so much, sire. As I understand, much of it is winnings at gambling dice against the knights."

A significant amount, then. Arthur thought again of the delicate curl of Merlin's hands on the pillow in front of his face, and gave an exasperated sigh at the thought of all of the coin he had lost to him over the dice table in the past year. It was probably the same as the juggling – magical cheat. Arthur wanted to be angry, or at least indignant, but it wouldn't come. "Sometimes, Sir Geoffrey, it occurs to me that my manservant puts me to some shame."

"Perhaps, he does that to many of us," Geoffrey offered. "He is a generous lad."

"Yes," Arthur muttered, his fingers picking at his lip. "He is." Arthur took a breath and sat up, dismissing that for later contemplation. At least now he better understood why Merlin wouldn't invest in much of anything for himself, including proper attire for winter. "The, um….further research that I requested of you. Were you able to find what I asked for?"

Geoffrey glanced down briefly. "I regret, sire, that the records likely did not survive. I am unable to locate any secondary sources either, though I have not yet given up."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Why would genealogical records have been purged?"

Geoffrey started to answer, then shook his head and let the breath go again before saying, "Some, I was ordered to destroy. Your father wished certain things to be forgotten. Others, however… I admit that I am responsible for their loss."

"How?" Arthur demanded. "Was there a fire, water damage…?"

"No, sire." Geoffrey cleared his throat and looked at the many tomes covering Arthur's desk. "A certain quantity of books and scrolls were deemed illicit, having to do with magic. In order to save those, I needed to turn over an equal quantity of other, less valuable material."

Arthur blinked and tilted his head first at Geoffrey, then at the various records he had been struggling through of late. After a moment, he nodded. "The genealogies and family histories of extinct noble houses would not be missed."

"I am sorry," Geoffrey breathed, and he seemed sincere in a way that he rarely was. Arthur had always found him cold and detached for the most part, on account of a nonexistent daft streak, apparently. "There was little time to find a way – "

Arthur held up his hand and shook his head. "No, you did the right thing. The magical texts were more important to Camelot's safety than lists of my father's dead." It was irreplaceable knowledge, though, just the same.

"If I may, sire, there is one thing that may shed some light," Geoffrey offered. "It is something Gaius said to me, not two moons past. It jogged a memory that my lord may find of interest."

Arthur motioned for him to go on, ignoring the covert glances that Geoffrey kept stealing at his parchments.

Geoffrey bowed his head again and shifted some more, the scrape of worn old bones on a hard chair. "Has my lord ever heard the name Myrddin Wyllt?"

Arthur shook his head over a familiar niggling in the back of his mind. "I don't think so."

"Mmm. There are, indeed, few now who know of him. But I thought I would ask."

Arthur made an impatient gesture.

"Yes," Geoffrey agreed, and a shadow of the vague old man reappeared for a moment. "He was a sorcerer and a seer. And rumored to be the bastard son of Uther's brother, Aurelius."

Arthur blinked. "What?"

Geoffrey pressed his lips together and looked down. "The child had no legitimate claim to the throne, if that is your concern."

"No, it's…" Arthur shook his head, and forced himself to keep his eyes open. Sorcerer, he had said. "Was he executed?"

"Yes, sire." Geoffrey's voice came sure but soft, as if to quiet the blow. "You were young, barely out of toddler's clothes. I doubt you would recall."

Arthur blinked several times, his lungs threatening to throw his respiration out of rhythm. "I was present," he guessed.

"You were a child," Geoffrey replied, but it was a confirmation just the same. "Myrddin was known for his madness. It is said that the seeing stones stole his wits, or that visions of a terrible future drove him from them."

There was a burning, nauseous feeling churning in Arthur's gut. He shook his head and curled his hands into fists. "What has any of this to do with Merlin?"

"Their names, sire." Geoffrey sounded apologetic for all that he had just put at Arthur's feet, but his voice remained steady and calm, as if unburdening himself of this tale had finally put something to rest for him as well. "Myrddin in the Cornish tongue is Merlin in ours."

Arthur breathed deep and looked up.

"Myrddin had a sister. I do not recall her name, but he called to her at his execution, between his ravings at your father. He apologized to her, for the life she would never have. He then claimed that Uther would destroy the balance of the world, and laid your mother's death at his feet for taking that which was not his to have."

"What do you mean – what did he take?"

Geoffrey grimaced. "You, sire. He insisted that you were Uther's to sire, but not to raise – that he would poison you and bring Camelot to ruin by it. He said that you were payment owed to magic. To the old religion."

Arthur tipped his head up sharply, remembering odd words spoken to him by an old mother in a cave, so many months and a year ago. _Much was changed that should not have been. Many futures which should have been set, were destroyed. You were not meant to learn his ways. You were not meant to have love for him, or to know him as a father. You are poisoned by your love of him…_

"It was nonsense. Again, sire, Myrddin was known for bouts of madness ever since the Battle of Armterid, many years prior to Uther's ascension."

"Geoffrey…" Arthur shifted and clasped his hands together. "I must ask. My birth… Was it magic that begot me?"

"I truly do not know," Geoffrey told him kindly. "There were rumors, of course. But I was not part of your father's inner circle, so I cannot confirm that. If it is true that you were conceived with the assistance of magic, then some things that happened in those times would make more sense. Your father's rage at Ygraine's death, certainly. The inability of healers to stop her bleeding and save her. Uther's turning on magic and the old religion."

"The purge?"

Geoffrey bowed his head. "The purge," he agreed.

Arthur sighed long and deep, resigned to likely never knowing now for certain. "Go on, Geoffrey. Tell me the rest."

"Of course, sire. Myrddin, eh…"

"He raved against my father," Arthur reminded him.

"Ah, yes. He claimed that the crystals in his cave showed him what he must do – that you must not be raised in Camelot, or to be a king. He called you by prophetic names – Once and Future, or something like that."

Arthur gave a start, and made haste to cover his discomfiture under the guise of rearranging his longcoat. _Once and Future King_. He had heard that several times now.

"He claimed that your destiny was tied to him, and that you must be given over to be raised by others who would not corrupt you, and to be completely unknown to your own father, that if you should pass in the street, he should not recognize you," Geoffrey continued, oblivious. "His obsession with you was…disturbing. And magic of the sort that he possessed, wielded by a madman, is something that even I shudder to contemplate. I regret to say that his death was likely a mercy, in the end, to all of us. Especially to him. That was no way for a man to live."

Arthur ruminated on the creases of his knuckles. "You don't speak as if you're repeating tales, Sir Geoffrey. You knew Myrddin."

"I would not say that," Geoffrey denied. "Not exactly. I met him once, here in Camelot, and I heard him around the lower town quite often. Gaius knew him far better, but they were not close either – Myrddin was too erratic. A wild man of the wood."

"And solely on the basis of a similar name, you assume that this Myrddin Wyllt is somehow connected to Merlin? That's thin, Sir Geoffrey."

"Perhaps," Geoffrey allowed. "But the name is not a common one, and those of the region who would know it would never name a child for the mad prophet of Caermarthon." He used the common name of the place that time, as if it were a familiar epithet. "It would be considered bad luck, sire."

Arthur shook his head and leaned back in his chair to pick at his lip, elbow resting loose on the chair arm. "Is there anything definitive linking this man to any of us?"

"Not directly," Geoffrey admitted. "There is no real proof but the names and coincidence. However, the conversation that I had with Gaius did draw some parallels. That is why I bring it up."

Arthur gestured him on, though it seemed that perhaps Geoffrey was approaching his dodderage after all.

"I believe it was at the feast of…hmmm… Mabon, possibly." At Arthur's impatient look, he waved his hands as if to dispel the fog of his words from the air. "In any case, Gaius mentioned his brother Bleise, who was killed in the last battles that drove Vortigern's sons and their armies from our lands. We were both somewhat in our cups, so I admit that my memory is rather fuzzy. He spoke at one point of his brother's wife as the sister of a mad sorcerer, and said that he was glad to have sent their daughter away – his niece – to spare her the sight of all that followed in the purge. Away to Essetir, where she might be safe."

"Hunith." Arthur barely even breathed the name.

"There is no way to be certain, sire; Gaius did not name her to me."

"There is, though. Merlin said once that Gaius was kin. He assumed Gaius was Hunith's uncle."

"Such familiarities do not require blood ties," Geoffrey pointed out. "Uncle could just as easily be a title of respect for a close friend of the family."

"Perhaps," Arthur allowed, but it felt true. "What else is known of him? Wyllt?"

Geoffrey moved his shoulders in something like a shrug. "Very little. He may be the same man referred to by old King Vortigern as Merlinus Ambrosius, who commanded the red and white dragons to fight in the cavern beneath his unfinished keep, and then brought its half-built walls down one final time to bury them. But I could not say for sure."

Dragonlord, Arthur thought. On both sides, apparently. Though it would not have been his mother's blood that passed it to Merlin. "Ambrosius," he mused.

"Yes. Perhaps in reference to Aurelius. Your uncle was much older than your father, of Vortigern's generation. Myrddin would not have been much younger than Uther himself, you see. And most men involved in those times and events are long since turned to dust."

Arthur shook his head. "My father had his own nephew burned at the stake."

Geoffrey licked his lips. "You must understand, sire. There was still fear at that time of usurpation, and the peace was strained. To have Aurelius's son, acknowledged or not, challenging the new king's conduct was far more than simple treason." He seemed uncomfortable with this conversation, and Arthur could well understand why. In point of fact, any son of Aurelius, bastard or not, even begotten on a commoner, may have had a stronger claim to the throne than Uther. Than Arthur.

"Yes," Arthur agreed, frowning at the backs of his hands where he set them on the desk. "And if this is true, if Myrddin is who you say, then my father was Merlin's great-great uncle. Dear gods." Arthur pressed his thumb and forefinger hard alongside the bridge of his nose.

"Possibly. That assumes that Myrddin's sister was a full-blooded sister, and not half, as I believe is far more likely. I don't believe that she was Aurelius' daughter – Gaius would have left some indication if that were true, as it would have meant an alternate bloodline existed with claims to the crown. Given your status as sole and only heir, and the inherent danger of your position as both prince and knight, it would have mattered that other heirs of Uther's father's bloodline existed, should you be killed at some point. It is far more likely that they shared a mother, and no more."

"Myrddin himself fathered no children?" Arthur asked.

"Certainly not, sire. He was a hermit and followed the old religion's ways concerning the gift of prophecy. He would have taken no woman, wife or otherwise."

"A small mercy, that." There was nothing to be done anymore about knowledge that had been lost, and Arthur regretfully dismissed it with a deep exhalation. He had long since resigned himself to the dichotomy of his father – the man Arthur loved, still, even after all he had learned, and the man who killed children in cold blood simply for being born with a skill he didn't like. To learn that his madness extended to his own family was far less a shock than it should have been. "Balinor, then. What can you tell me of him?"

"He was well respected, in his time," Geoffrey replied. "And he was one of the few able to command the Great Dragon. His lands laid northwest of here, in the mountains, and was once home to many dragons, and to many clutches of eggs which may still be hidden there in the caverns and vales. He was an ally to your father and Camelot for many years during the struggle against Vortigern and the early waves of Saxons. That, of course, soured with the purge, and the eradication of the dragons. Your majesty already knows, of course, of the imprisonment of the Great Dragon, and Balinor's flight from these lands. I am afraid that of his life and deeds, there is little left in the records of that either. He was a skilled fighter, and if not for his unique status, may have qualified to be a knight. He was not known to have married or fathered children, but of course, we do know of his son now."

Arthur bit his lip. "You can show me on a map which lands he once held?"

"Of course. It is here." Geoffrey reached for one of the documents folded and sealed with wax and a crest that Arthur did not recognize. "The lands were awarded him by King Budick of Cornwall, and your father allowed the claim to remain when he won the crown."

Arthur took a breath and nodded. "I would like this formalized for court as soon as possible. How long would that take?"

For a moment, Geoffrey appeared puzzled. "The land claim, sire?"

"The title documents, yes. When can it be finished?"

Geoffrey didn't answer right away, but instead peered carefully at Arthur for a longer time than was proper for a subject to examine his monarch. "Sire…with respect. Surely you understand the breadth of what this will mean, should you announce it at court."

"I understand fully, Sir Geoffrey." Arthur blinked back at him, nonplussed. "Do you wish to argue against it?"

"No," Geoffrey breathed. "It will take several days, however. I must confirm that the claim is not taken or broken apart, and I do have some records still to check that may yield further information." He appeared paler than he had a moment ago, and though he had gone still in his chair, something about him seemed more animated – something, perhaps, in the outline of his body set against the rest of the room, or in the silhouette of his features shadowed by the firelight at his back. "You will face opposition, restoring a dragonlord's son to the noble class."

"That is not all that I am doing. Merlin is, himself, a dragonlord."

Geoffrey stared at him for a long moment, and then cast a harried look at the door separating them from the rest of the castle. "The sorcerer," he breathed in realization. He focused sharply back on Arthur, the mask of the old man gone. "You are going to lift the ban on magic, and restore a sorcerer to the noble class – to the court and council of Camelot."

"Surely, you had an inkling?" Arthur prodded. "After all of these strange reading requests?"

"Yes, but I never thought… It was an abstract, sire. I assumed that you would allow for some necessary defensive magic, perhaps. Or that you wished to better understand your sister, or extend a peace offering to the Druids. But you do not propose to simply make use of some small magic. You propose to undo your father's laws completely."

"Do you think Merlin undeserving of that?"

This snapped Geoffrey out of his dazed disbelief. "With respect, sire, you cannot contemplate enacting something of this magnitude for the sake of one man, no matter what he has done for Camelot."

Arthur gave him a sour look. "That actually sounds like something Merlin might say."

"Then he is not as daft as he pretends," Geoffrey replied. "The boy has lived under direct threat of these laws for over a decade, and never once, to my knowledge, advocated their undoing."

"He's done the opposite, actually," Arthur confirmed, his mind turning to Mordred and the disir. _There can be no place for magic in Camelot,_ said the sorcerer sat at the right hand of the king. "Though I still have no idea why."

"Don't you, sire?" Geoffrey studied him carefully. "He is your servant, and his loyalty to you is, quite frankly, uncommon. He would never advocate something so dangerous."

"Then you do oppose what I am considering."

Geoffrey thought about that for a moment, and then to Arthur's surprise, shook his head. "No. But it has been…a long time. Many of your people, nobles and commoners alike, have never known the world you propose to foist on them. It will cause unrest. It may even threaten your hold on the crown if anyone perceives this as coerced in any way, as by an enchantment or even just affection for one you favor."

"I don't expect it to be easy for them to accept," Arthur acknowledged. But Merlin deserved to be recognized for all that he had done for Camelot, and Arthur could not do that without also recognizing what he was. Of course, it helped that everyone seemed to like Merlin; Arthur could think of no better face to put forward to show the goodness of magic. "But I believe that it is the right path."

Geoffrey's face softened. "I beg you to consider the ramifications in finer detail. You propose to reveal your servant as a sorcerer. Any anger or distrust of your decision will fall on him. You may very well place his life in considerable danger, no matter your good intentions."

A flash of anger mobilized Arthur to sit forward, but he refrained from striking the desktop as he wanted to do. "My kingdom is already in a state of unrest – my father saw to that. There is fear on every face when I so much as glance at the scaffold. The accusation of sorcery is used for petty revenge or to put brutal ends to neighbors' disputes. And that is to say nothing of the fact that we make enemies of peoples of magic simply by existing – of people who don't have to be our enemies! What else would you have me do? This cannot continue – it will tear Camelot apart, as my sister nearly did. And for what? To protect a persecution that is in direct opposition to the oath I swore when you placed the crown on my head?"

"I am not disagreeing with you," Geoffrey placated. "I am only advising caution." He tipped his head away toward the closed door beyond which the rest of the castle was bedding down to sleep. "You care for him, sire. It is obvious to anyone with eyes to look. For his sake, you must be practical. You are not the one who will bear the brunt of the consequences if events go ill. And if he is indeed the sorcerer to whom we owe our many reprieves, ruining his anonymity and safety would be a poor repayment for his services."

The calm delivery doused Arthur's anger, and he subsided back into his chair, his spine curving into an unkingly slouch. "I do know that, Sir Geoffrey."

"Then I only ask that you exercise care and patience. And regardless of my hesitance, be assured that you have my full support." He gestured at his rather portly and arthritic figure, his expression wry. "Such as it is."

Arthur chuckled softly, but his words were sincere and his mind troubled when he said, "Thank you, Sir Geoffrey. I will think on what you have said."

It was rather late by the time Arthur finished touring the castle, checking in with the knights on duty and making a surprise inspection of the garrisons on the south wall. Not that they really needed it, any of them; security was much better under Arthur's reign than his father's and he hadn't had cause for concern in…well, about a year, actually. He had tightened things up quite a bit after Guinevere's death, too little too late. He just couldn't sleep after spending the entire day in bed, and yet he didn't have a mind for reading reports either. His thoughts remained slightly scattered after speaking with Geoffrey, and he found himself trying desperately to remember attending the execution of his cousin at his father's hand. It was not pleasant, this effort. He needed a distraction – hard to come by in a sleeping citadel.

Arthur's let his feet lead him where they would, and unsurprisingly, he found himself contemplating the door of the infirmary well into the third watch. The torches guttered in the breeze blowing in from the practice fields even though the doors remained closed and barred at this hour. He imagined he could hear Gaius, commenting offhand to Arthur's back that Merlin might die for him some day. It seemed ironic that of all the people who Gaius might choose to haunt, he didn't choose his all-but-son.

With nowhere else to go this late, and nothing better to do, Arthur knocked and cracked open the door to see if Merlin were still awake. The light inside burned low, but he could still make out the line of Merlin's back where he sat beside the sick cot. He looked up at the creak of the door and then murmured something to the woman sat on the other side of the cot. Arthur watched him run a comforting hand over the woman's shoulder as she nodded, and then Merlin extricated himself from the scene to see what Arthur needed. It was only as he moved away that Arthur saw the figure on the cot, covered in blankets, still except for a subtle undulation of the chest as she breathed.

"Sire?" Merlin blocked most of the room with his body, his voice low in deference to his patient.

Arthur nodded past Merlin's shoulder. "Is that Elise?"

Merlin glanced back too, briefly, and then faced Arthur again with his head down. "And her mother."

"What's wrong with her?"

Merlin looked up, past Arthur's ear, his bottom lip caught for a moment in his teeth. His tongue flickered out to sooth and wet the place he'd bitten, and then he shook his head and tried to motion Arthur out into the hall.

Arthur slipped inside instead, forcing Merlin back a step, and leaned against the door to close it. He watched the woman sat beside the cot start to rise, her face pale and splotchy, and motioned her to remain seated. She ducked her head as she sank back and focused on the woman in the cot instead, face averted to offer a veneer of privacy to the king.

"Arthur – "

"What's wrong with her?" Arthur repeated, ignoring the subtle rebuke in Merlin's tone.

Merlin made a frustrated noise and glanced back again. Then he crowded in closer to Arthur and said, "She got with child and tried to expel it herself, with some herb mixture she bought in the street. And now she's hemorrhaged and – " He twitched his shoulders, as Arthur should know the rest.

Arthur shook his head. "And?" he demanded obnoxiously.

Merlin blinked and puffed out a scornful breath. "And she's dying," he hissed. He immediately looked over his shoulder, his posture screaming of guilt for saying it like that in front of the mother. When he turned back to Arthur, he was irritated and more upset than before. "Look, this is likely the last night she will ever spend with her daughter. Can you just be a decent human being for once and leave?"

Arthur choked down his first reaction, which was to cuff Merlin upside the head and dress him down for his insolence. Because he was right – having the king barge in and demand to be let into a woman's private affairs while her daughter died between them was somewhat inconsiderate. "Can't you do something for her?"

"No," Merlin moaned quietly, as if willing Arthur to feel some kind of empathy he wasn't capable of. "If she'd taken to bed when the bleeding started, maybe, but she didn't want anyone to know, and she kept working until – " He waggled a hand to indicate the scene behind him.

Arthur shook his head. "But there must be something."

"There's nothing, sire. She's dying. I can't stop the bleeding; it's too heavy, and too deep inside."

"No." Arthur didn't even know this girl, but he couldn't accept that she would die for something so – so inconsequential. Or, however inconsequential ending the quickening of the womb could be, he didn't know. "There must be something _you_ can do, Merlin."

Merlin bared his teeth, preparatory no doubt to telling Arthur off, and then the breath he'd worked up huffed out through his teeth as it occurred to him what Arthur was asking. He straightened, his face going slack, and blinked at Arthur with wide eyes as he breathed, "I can't."

"Surely there's something you can try," Arthur insisted. He spoke over the way Merlin had started shaking his head with increasing vehemence. "Anything."

"I can't do that. Arthur, no." His voice had grown thick with an emotion that Arthur didn't understand. "Too many things could go wrong, I might just make it worse – "

"How much worse could it get," Arthur demanded. "She's dying. There's nothing more to lose, and if there's even a chance – "

"Please."

Arthur broke off and looked up, startled to find Elise's mother standing close behind Merlin.

"Please," she said again, trembling and desperate. "If there's something you can do…"

Merlin just kept shaking his head, and now he raised his hands between himself and Arthur as if to keep him back. "No. That's not an option."

Arthur stepped forward when he stepped back. "It is an option. Merlin, I've seen what you can do."

"It won't work!" Merlin snapped.

"Like it didn't work on my father?"

Merlin may have stopped breathing, he went so still so suddenly.

It was the mother who spoke first into the silence, strong with a mother's ferocity in her grief. "I will do anything," she vowed, looking back and forth between them. "Anything, I am begging you. If there is even the slightest chance of it helping, please. Please. She's all I have."

Merlin's eyes were like saucers in his head, and Arthur forced himself to hold that gaze and stay calm for it. Finally, Merlin breathed, "It's not permitted."

"I am permitting it," Arthur replied, steady.

Merlin started to say something, stopped, and tried desperately to maintain his composure even as his erratic breathing betrayed him. "I don't have any skill in that. I could kill her."

Arthur nodded, his sinuses going tight and stuffy because he knew Merlin was a sorcerer, but Merlin didn't know that Arthur was aware of which one. "She's already dying, Dragoon." He watched Merlin's chest stutter as he stepped back, catching his bottom lip hard in his teeth as his face went crumply with denial. "There isn't any more harm you could do."

"You – " Merlin's mouth worked over nothing but fitful breaths and his own disbelief, or whatever else it was that made his eyes go glassy and his hands shake. "You…no."

Arthur advanced on him quickly, before he could back any further away, and grabbed at his biceps to hold him still. Merlin put up his arms too late to block, his fingers dangling useless between their bodies, curled like the legs of dead insects "You have the knowledge, and she is dying. You have to try. I am telling you – your king is telling you – to try. Isn't this what magic is for? Hm? If not this, then what?"

Beside them, Elise's mother was doing an admirable job of keeping her peace, but her expression and the thin line of her mouth spoke volumes. Arthur nodded to her, and she pressed a handkerchief hard into her mouth to stifle herself, as if hope were the most painful thing she could have been given. And maybe it was. Hope was treacherous, after all. As she stepped back, Arthur looked again to Merlin, only to find him having a small panic in Arthur's face. "Merlin?"

Merlin breathed on him, too fast and hard, air sour from too many hours of stress, and nodded. It looked more like he was flapping his head, really, but good enough. Arthur let him go and moved away to give him space to collect himself. Merlin just stood there for a beat too long, like a deer caught in the woods waiting for the bolt to hit before it ran. Then he swiveled one way, stopped himself, and spun away in the other direction to paw through the shelves of herbs and remedies. Arthur left him to it.

Arthur moved over to the cot and lowered himself to the stool that Merlin had vacated. The girl, Elise…she was so young. Too young, surely, to be got with child. "How did this happen…" He gave the mother an expectant look.

"Letha, sire."

Arthur smiled, small and reassuring, at Elise's mother. "How did this happen, Letha?"

"We were short of coin," she admitted. "I didn't know she was doing it. She told me she was selling trinkets she made from scraps and bits of stone she found on the river, but she – " Letha broke off as if she were physically incapable of saying what her daughter had actually been doing. "We didn't need the coin that bad. She should never – If it came to that, it should have been me, not her." She shook her head, her composure dissolving into tears and a single, sharp hiccup like bile. "Never her," she whispered. Spindly fingers reached out and smoothed Elise's hair back, the loving touch of a mother tucking stray hairs away from the face of her beautiful child.

Arthur blinked. He had no words, only the image of this…child…pale and unmoving on the cot before him, translucent like a corpse even while the breath still moved in her. How did this happen? How could this happen in his city? "This is not right," he grated.

Letha glanced up, her expression nearly as dead as her daughter. "No," she agreed. "And yet it happens every day."

"Alright," Merlin broke in, startling them both with his anxious jittering as he appeared at the head of the cot. He had a small sheaf of evergreen herbs and sage in one hand, and he looked about ready to vomit. _I hope_ , Dragoon had told him, stood over the dying body of Arthur's father, _one day you will see me in a different light._ Arthur couldn't see the slightest bit of that crazy old man in Merlin now, but years had passed since then, and even Arthur could see the erosion of the confidence that Merlin had once worn with his youth. He gave Arthur a wobbly smile full of teeth and terror.

Arthur stood, but instead of moving away, he came up close and framed Merlin's face in his hands. Merlin went still, shocked into immobility, and his wild eyes focused with startling precision on Arthur's face. "This girl is not my father. What happened that day has no bearing on this. You can save her. I want to see you save her."

Merlin's eyes turned glassy but he nodded and took a fortifying breath before Arthur let him go. Still, he warned, "It might not work," and looked up at Letha. "I might…"

Letha nodded to spare him the need to say it. "I know the risks." She glanced sidelong at Arthur as well, and then back to her daughter. "But I will pay any price for the chance of her life." Her eyes found Arthur's again. "I will burn for it if I must."

"No one will be burnt for this," Arthur promised. "Those days are over. I made a promise." He shifted his gaze to Merlin, who avoided it.

Merlin stood still at the head of the cot for several moments, apparently to gather his courage. He wasn't playing Dragoon, after all. He was just Merlin, deliberately doing magic in front of the king he still didn't entirely trust not to hurt him for it. Arthur considered how decades of living in fear could warp someone so much that promises and honor meant nothing when faced with the secret he guarded literally with his life. Merlin was so trusting, Arthur thought. He truly was. About everything but this. Magic.

The candles guttered in a draft and Merlin reset his feet, still breathing like he might be strangled in a moment. Finally, he moved around to the side of the cot and knelt down with the bundle of evergreen and sage held out over Elise's stomach with both hands. He licked his lips and exhaled harsh through his nose as the herbs began smoking. There was a terrible moment, as the scent wafted to Arthur's nostrils where he stood back from the cot, where his eyes swam and the royal chambers seemed to shimmer before him. His father in bed, ashen already and covered in the scent of a slow death. And Dragoon looking at him with such sadness and regret, all but begging Arthur to see the goodness that magic could be before he cast his spell and killed the king.

Arthur shook himself free of the vision and the false picture it gave of the sorcerer in front of him. Merlin still looked terrified, but he was also determined, waving his smoking branch over the girl and concentrating on her while Letha backed away as if she had only just realized what would happen. Or perhaps seeing it was something entirely separate from its contemplation beforehand. Arthur had not been prepared for the immediacy of the magic he had seen performed on his father, he knew that. He had never in his life been more afraid of what he had sought out and allowed to happen. The sensation of it was like knives to the stomach, piercing and jarring, wrenching his view of the world just a few inches to one side at the realization of it. Like falling from the ramparts and knowing the ground would come soon.

"Efencume ætgædre."

Arthur's breath caught briefly in his lungs at the incantation, and he forced his hands to unclench again at his sides.

"Eala gastas cræftige: gestricie pis lic forod." Merlin's eyes flared gold for a moment, and then he gasped and dropped the herbs as they disintegrated into a sudden fall of ash over Elise's abdomen.

No one moved at first, and then Merlin leaned forward to check for a heartbeat. He blinked a few times, rapid and anxious, then put his hands over her abdomen and repeated, "Efencume ætgædre, eala gastas cræftige: gestricie pis lic forod."

Arthur stepped forward, his stomach in his boots.

"Efencume ætgædre, eala gastas cræftige: gestricie pis lic forod!" Merlin's eyes glowed again, a flash of amber unearthly in the dim candlelight, and nothing happened.

Oh gods. Arthur had known that it might not work, that it might be a repeat of his father's demise, but it had never occurred to him that _nothing_ might happen. And that was worse, like Guinevere all over again – he knew the look on Merlin's face, sick with desperation.

"Þurhhæle dolgbenn." The set of Merlin's mouth turned stubborn, a thing born of waning hope and sorrow. "Licsar ge staðol nu! Come on."

Arthur looked to Letha, who had her eyes closed and her mouth hidden in a scrap of cloth. Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes but she made no move to speak.

Merlin scrambled closer on his knees and felt along Elise's stomach, then a bit lower, where the womb sits. He mumbled something more with a flutter of gold in his eyes and seemed to be looking through her skin. "Ichthe thor heale, thænu licsar."

He should never have pushed Merlin into this. "Merlin."

"Þurhhæle licsar min!" Merlin shouted it that time, and Arthur jumped at the sensation more than the sight of it, like the sound of seared meat. Merlin hissed and snatched his hands back as if burnt, and Elise… Oh. Elise arched up and gasped, her eyes flying open in shock.

"Lisey?" Letha scrambled forward and over her daughter's body.

Elise sat up, her chest heaving, and looked at Merlin in confusion before noticing her mother. "Mumma."

The obvious place to look was at Letha grasping onto her daughter fierce as if to protect her from harm through sheer force of her embrace, but Arthur was looking at Merlin where he had flung himself back, small against the wall and covering his mouth to hold in whatever reaction threatened to come out.

"Don't you ever do that again!" Letha was crying. "Do you hear me, child? The coin is not worth your life – I'd eat sawdust before I'd sell you for bread. You're _precious_!"

Arthur knelt down in the space between the cot and the wall to pry Merlin's hand from his face. It went stiffly and Merlin made a guttural noise deep in his chest as Arthur pulled at him. As if it hurt to save a life. As if it were tearing him apart to see what he'd done. "It's alright. You did good."

"Oh, gods." Merlin slid across the stone floor in a heap as Arthur pulled, shaking, his breath like tattered flags of war shredded in a brutal wind. "Oh gods. Oh gods."

Arthur managed to pull him far enough out that he could get one hand on the back of Merlin's neck and push it down before he hyperventilated and passed out. "Breathe, Merlin. It's over now."

Merlin twisted briefly in protest and then let himself be repositioned to sag against Arthur's chest, his every exhalation tinged with the slightest bit of sound like a distant hum. His fingers came up to dig into Arthur's arm, nails like the prongs of an anchor gouged into the seabed. "I did it." Merlin laughed suddenly, his ribcage a stuttering in hysterical spasms under Arthur's hand.

In spite of himself, Arthur laughed too, only then realizing that his cheeks were wet and his nose stuffed, and he was crying like a bloody girl. "You did it," he agreed, his voice pitched higher than usual, like a giggle.

The tense lines of Merlin's limbs uncoiled as he laughed, breathless and stupid, and Arthur couldn't help how infectious it was; he found himself gripping onto Merlin like a boy giggling at children's play, just…happy. There was a weight gone from his shoulders that he hadn't even realized he carried, as if he needed to see this – needed to know that his belief in the possible good uses of magic were not a delusion. And maybe Merlin had needed to see that too, really. Arthur suspected that most of the magic he had done in his life consisted of violence and killing, albeit in Arthur's name or defense. That kind of thing could exact a terrible toll from a man, to never see the good in his own works.

Arthur looked up from the mop of Merlin's hair and the sloppy mess of giggling sorcerer in his arms to find Letha smiling at them, her face warm and genuine in her gratitude. "Thank you, my king."

It shouldn't have made his throat burn to be called that, rather than just _sire_ , but the conviction of it could have wounded him. He nodded, unable to say anything that wouldn't come out as gibberish. He patted Merlin upside the head though to make it clear who she should be thanking, and then he grinned when Merlin took a swat at him for it. Because Merlin had that look on his face again that Arthur hadn't seen in ages – the one with the smile that reached his eyes.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

 _"Have you always slept on the floor?" Arthur stared at the thatched ceiling of the little hut in Ealdor, aware of the dirt beneath his back, cold and lumpy, and damp even through the cushioning of cloak and bedroll. This place could barely be classified as a house; it was more akin to the stables in Camelot, fit for horses and pigs, maybe dogs. But not people. Even the poor in Camelot lived in better places than this._

 _"Yeah. The bed I've got in Camelot's a luxury by comparison."_

 _Perhaps he needed to keep Merlin's origins in mind more often. If this was where he'd been raised, then his complete lack of manners or social skills made much more sense. It was a miracle he was functional at court at all, really. But it did beg the question: where on earth had he gained an education, growing up here? He was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid; Gaius wouldn't keep a useless apprentice, family or no. "It must have been hard."_

 _"Mm. It's like rock."_

 _Oh, for god's sake. "I didn't mean the ground," Arthur bit out. Seriously, the boy must suffer some mental affliction. Poverty alone could not account for the depth of his obliviousness. "I meant, for you – it must've been difficult."_

 _"Mm, not really. I didn't know any different."_

 _Or perhaps it wasn't obliviousness? Maybe Merlin's reply, that yes the ground was hard, was the normal one for a peasant to make? After all, as he said, he'd known no differently. If it was just how he lived, how he'd always lived, why would he consider it difficult? It was only Arthur who wasn't accustomed to this kind of place._

 _"Life's simple out here," Merlin continued. Arthur could detect something wistful in his voice, but it wasn't the longing that other men held for their homes or homelands, or their lost youth. It was yearning for something he'd never had, which made no sense, seeing as Merlin did have that, and could have kept it if he'd wanted to. "You eat what you grow and everyone pitches in together. As long as you've got food on the table and a roof over your head, you're happy."_

 _The whole idea of that – that this life, calling a livestock hut your home and being happy about it – Arthur couldn't comprehend not wanting something better. Clean floors, at least. A mattress. Meat for breakfast. A few dogs barked outside in the darkness and Arthur tried not to let his disgust come out in his voice. "Sounds…" He thought about it for a moment, how to finish that. Boring, awful, cold, dirty…hard… "…nice."_

 _"You'd hate it." There was a wry sort of mirth in Merlin's voice._

 _"No doubt," Arthur agreed, because yes, he would. But perhaps it wasn't the accommodations that mattered. Sometimes, he longed for simplicity, to be free of the city and the crown in a way that hunting trips alone could not accomplish. There was, he admitted silently, a certain allure to living in peace like this where the only care was to tend your fields and shore up your home for the winter, defend your harvest and perhaps share your hearth with someone special. No wars, no politics, no fevered crusades against people who didn't seem evil. No father to fail to please at every turn. Perhaps this kind of life wasn't all that difficult at all. "Why'd you leave?"_

 _A weariness invaded the small space where they two of them lay toe to head. "Things just…changed."_

 _"How?" It surprised him to realize that he actually wanted to know. Merlin didn't reply, though, and it seemed he didn't intend to, so Arthur jabbed his toes in the general direction of Merlin's nostrils. "Come on, stop pretending to be interesting." Merlin cringed away and shoved at his foot. Arthur obliged and retreated back to his side of the unspoken line between them in the cramped space. "Tell me."_

 _Merlin snorted with soft laughter and Arthur wondered, not for the first time, if this were one of those things that others referred to as the ridiculous antics of young boys. Because he wasn't sure; he'd never really played like this, or teased. He didn't have a…a William when he was growing up, the way Merlin apparently had._

 _But when Merlin replied, there was something in his tone that sounded sad, and maybe a little hurt. "I just didn't fit in anymore. I wanted to find somewhere that I did."_

 _It sounded like the truth, but Arthur also knew that coming to Camelot had been Merlin's mother's doing. She had sent him. Arthur wondered if Merlin would have left Ealdor of his own volition, had she not done so, and if he had, would it still have been Camelot he came to? Arthur wasn't quite naïve or arrogant enough to deny that if Merlin had not come when he did, Arthur would have died by now, either by daggers or by poison. So it mattered, why he came. Why he left. Why he stayed, even. Arthur let himself start to smile, because that last one, he thought he might be able to guess at. "Had any luck?"_

 _"I'm not sure yet."_

 _It was said with such finality – the edges of the words sharp and brittle – that Arthur had to squash the urge to demand what that meant, or worse, reassure him that he did fit in, at Camelot, with Arthur. He definitely couldn't admit that Merlin's response made his stomach burn hollow for a moment with let-down. Because that would be stupid, and Arthur was a prince. Who was Merlin, anyway? Arthur shifted, uncomfortable, and refused to identify any of what he felt as insult or hurt. He didn't care if Merlin was happy in Camelot. Why would he? "We'll start training the men tomorrow." He squirmed his way over onto his side, facing away from Merlin's stupid feet and the dirt discoloring his toes. "It's gonna be a long day," he groaned. "Get the candle."_

 _Merlin shuffled around after a moment's hesitation and the room went dark. The signature scent of charred wick and cooling tallow smoked into the small space. It bothered Arthur that he still wanted to say something more – something kind, or something angry, he didn't know which. It shouldn't matter. Merlin shouldn't matter._

 _Arthur at least possessed enough self-awareness to realize that if that were true, though, he wouldn't be here. However much the injustice of Ealdor's plight offended him as a knight, he wouldn't have come if it weren't for Merlin setting off first like some incompetent errant in shining rags. He'd have been killed, and Arthur didn't know how a peasant could face what even knights quailed at – insurmountable odds and certain death for a principle, and nothing more. Arthur had no idea what to do with that realization, because even he could tell that this was barely a home to his servant – that wasn't what Merlin had come here to defend. None of the villagers, aside from that William boy, so much as gave him the time of day. Some even glared at him, sneered, or sketched superstitious gestures at him as if he were some kind of fae child. Obviously, he didn't fit here. It was ungracious of Arthur to be glad about that, since it meant that Merlin wouldn't likely stay past the current crisis. Was it selfish of Arthur to hope that Merlin remained unwelcome here, so that he would have no choice but to return to Camelot? To stay with Arthur? After all, it wasn't like Merlin really had anywhere else to go._

* * *

Arthur pulled the door shut behind him as he exited the physician's quarters, leaving Elise and her mother to sleep on the cot they had both curled up on. Merlin was still puttering around in there, moving things aimlessly and straightening with a nervous sort of energy. When Arthur tried to stop him, he mumbled something about how Gaius would be appalled at the disarray. As far as Arthur knew, though, the place had always been cluttered, but perhaps there was an order to it that he hadn't noticed. In any case, Merlin was faffing about, alternately smiling and wringing his hands, and shooting Arthur worried looks, which was driving Arthur round the bend. If he didn't know what Camelot was like – what he himself had been like since Merlin met him – he might have been insulted at how Merlin still seemed uncertain that he wouldn't be arrested for the magic he had done on the girl. As if the tree in Arthur's chambers weren't itself a hanging offense, technically. As if Arthur hadn't been crying like a maiden aunt right alongside him just a few short hours ago, ecstatic at what he'd witnessed.

Exhaustion was creeping up on Arthur now that most of the night was gone. Sometimes, he really did wish that he could be anyone but the king. He wanted a single day to feel normal again, except he had no idea anymore what normal even entailed. Was that a hunting trip without a gaggle of royal guards trailing him? A lie in? A boring day at council? Maybe none of his days had ever been normal, and he would never know what it meant to have one that was. He wondered what normal was like in Ealdor, with Merlin young and smiling, still unscathed by the horrors of the world, and Arthur barely any better, not yet quite a man. Arthur had led his first raid at fourteen though. To be as young as Merlin had been when they met, a carefree boy on the cusp of adulthood, Arthur would have to have been…what, ten? Had he been that young even then, toddling along in his father's shadow, under the pall of the fallout from his birth? Maybe someone who had seen so many executions from the time he could walk that they blurred unrecognizably together could never be normal. Maybe the memory of riding high on his smiling father's shoulders, crunching apple slices and watching the flames burn down before bedtime could never be undone.

With a grim shake of his head, Arthur made his way up to the royal apartments. Arthur wondered when, exactly, their lives had started to unravel, because that was what it felt like. Everything was wrong, and neither of them could keep going at this rate. He needed a holiday soon. For now, he felt functional if tired, but if these late nights and early starts continued much longer, it would start to show. And he felt certain that Merlin was even worse off at the moment, especially considering his infirmity. They would have to account for that at some point; this lack of rest and regular meals would only make Merlin more susceptible to fits. And he needed to mourn. Even Arthur knew that, but Merlin didn't seem willing yet. Arthur knew what that felt like. He had blamed himself for the magic that finally claimed Uther for a long time after, no matter that it came at Merlin's hand. The echo of that ache still remained - the idea that because of his guilt, his complicity, he had no right to mourn – to miss his father. He didn't want Merlin feeling that way too just because he wasn't able to help in time.

Arthur pushed into his private chambers and took a deep breath of being alone. He hated the isolation of who he was, and yet sometimes, he couldn't stand the feeling of being surrounded all of the time. There was a comfort and presence to his chambers that he hadn't noticed until it was George, not Merlin, doing most of the cleaning up. Right now, the place was too sterile, everything placed too perfectly and put away, the bed too crisp with its fresh linens. But the ridiculous tree was where Arthur had left it, at least, and there were three new fruit bowls spaced evenly around it, full of apples. It was the most ludicrous thing, and he smiled at it all because it did feel of Merlin, awkward and gangly and concealed beneath a thin, plain draping, planted somewhere it shouldn't thrive.

Beyond the windowpanes, the sky glowed in anticipation of sunrise, but the air retained the chill of the evening, and Arthur rubbed his hands over his biceps as he shuffled across the room. He stepped into the quiet of the back corridor, where only the royal occupants, his personal guard, and a few favored servants could go. He glanced around for signs of life, but it seemed that no one was about yet. Relieved and embarrassed at his furtive tendencies, he walked slowly down to Guinevere's door and waited long enough in front of it to be certain that no one would approach. It was rare to find this corridor deserted, no matter its privacy. Once assured that he was entirely alone, Arthur grasped the keys at his hip and looked at the little keyhole before him as if it were an insurmountable quest, or an enchanted cave where he might be forced to confront the shade of his true self. Arthur breathed in the congested manner of a chest cold, swaying lightly on his feet until his body tilted far enough to bring his forehead into contact with the wood.

A dull thunk sounded out softly in the silence and Arthur took a deep, almost desperate breath, his lungs burning as he dropped the keys to hang again from his belt and pressed both of his palms to the smooth grain. "Good morning, Guinevere." He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but his exhalation carried the words of their own accord. "I'm going to do something today. You would be happy, I think. You always liked Merlin."

He shook his head, eyes shut tight in shame as he recalled Guinevere's sudden chill toward Merlin, and the way that it must have hurt and confused him at first. It was yet another warning sign that he failed to heed. She would never have suspected Merlin of trying to poison anyone, least of all Arthur. He wondered what it said about himself that he only learned of his wife's actions because he evidently trusted his servant more – noticed Merlin's odd behavior and discontent before seeing the chill in the eyes of his queen. He still didn't know where Merlin had actually been for two days, or how he somehow fell hard enough to leave the bruising Arthur had seen, or how he came to be poisoned in an obvious attempt to keep him out of the way of the assassination attempt. He must have tried to act against Morgana or break the curse on Guinevere himself, alone, rather than asking Arthur for help. No, Arthur had to spy on and follow his own wife, with Merlin scrambling after him, attempting to stop him, before any of that truth had come out. It shamed Arthur to realize that he had behaved so appallingly in the past when warned of treachery in his household that Merlin couldn't come to him with that.

"I miss you." The words didn't carry far enough to echo, but Arthur felt exposed just the same, as if he were on trial before the whole of his kingdom. He struggled to force it back down, the guilt, before it choked him, because it wasn't healthy, this repetition of a pointless penance. Once calm again, Arthur rubbed his brow against the warming spot of wood where he leaned against the door. The grain, soft whorls of worn chestnut, pulled gently across his skin like fingers trying in vain to soothe him. "I saw magic today. It was…miraculous. I wish you could have seen it too." He smoothed his brow back and forth, back and forth on the wood grain and wondered if ten years now, he will have worn a depression into it like a worry stone. "Merlin is still afraid of me – of what I might do to him for the magic. I don't know what to do to stop it. You could have explained it. I know he's hurt, and it's my fault for the things he's seen me do, but I don't understand how to fix it. I made a vow never to light another pyre. It's not enough." He closed his eyes and inhaled, trying in vain to catch her scent, or the soft sound of a swish of her dress beyond the wood. "The girl he saved… How many others have I condemned to die by vilifying magic? How many deaths does Merlin carry on his conscience for doing nothing because of my laws?" He shook his head; it was on him, ultimately, and no one else. "I'm going to make things right," he told her, voice stronger now. "The things I still can, at least. Because I can't do this anymore, Guinevere. You told me, so many times, and I didn't want to listen. I can't be my father. I can't make him proud of my rule. It will kill me to try." He swallowed, forcing the lump in his throat back down with his sorrow and whatever else swam up behind his tongue that he couldn't bring himself to consider yet. "My kingdom is divided. I'm…divided. And we can't live like this any longer. There has to be an end." He pressed his face harder to the door as if he could force the tears that threatened out of himself and into the wood where no one but Guinevere would see. "I miss you _so much._ So does Merlin. I wish you could have seen him today. I'm going to make him Court Physician. He's earned it, hasn't he? You would be proud of him."

Arthur closed his eyes again and imagined her smile, gentle and wreathed in a glow whether she wore jewels or just flowers in her hair, or nothing at all. He imagined her trying to contain her joy at seeing Merlin elevated to a position that fit his character, that he deserved – at witnessing him recognized for the good and kind man, the selfless man, that he was. Finally. They would have all dined together later this day, he thought – all three of them in a line at the royal table, celebrating, and none of them serving the others or standing apart anymore. She would have been so happy, dimples everywhere, teasing Merlin for his blushes and for fumbling the formal dining utensils. And she would have looked at him, Arthur, with forgiveness. With pride.

"I'll tell him," Arthur choked. "I'll tell him how proud you are. He'll…" His voice failed him for a moment, and he struggled past the rasp and the clogged airway. "He'll like that." Arthur nodded and few times while he regained his composure, lips pressed tightly together to hold back any sound that might try to escape him. When he could draw a deep breath without it catching or going fluttery at the end, Arthur pushed himself away from the door and fixed his eyes on the small slip of light shining weakly along the floor, where the sun had crept through the windows of Guinevere's chamber to greet him, too thin though for him to reach – to touch his feet where he stood before the barred entry. "Have a pleasant morning, Guinevere." Then he nodded a few more times, more to reassure himself that he was fine and able to walk away, before he did just that. He didn't look back; all that remained behind him was a sliver of light shining out from under the door of a tomb, a siren's call to a life he could no longer live. He could not allow himself to wallow in that – to be tempted into looking ever back at all of the mistakes he could not set right, and the things he couldn't change.

His next stop was the Steward's office to update the ledgers accordingly, and then George found him in the corridor near the kitchens, where Arthur had somehow managed to get himself turned around in a dead end hallway offering nothing but an empty closet and a ladder down into a cold storage room. Arthur accepted a plate from him, and directions, and then sat on one of the benches rimming the training grounds to eat in the weak autumn sun. First, though, he gained George's promise that food would be delivered to Merlin too. He would have liked to let the man rest, or clean if he preferred, because he certainly needed a break, but the council's last session before Samhain was today. They needed to conclude outstanding business, and Arthur would need Merlin present to do that.

The sun sketched out a feeble light amongst the clouds, the crisp of autumn slow to give way to the new morning, dew frozen into a light frost on the grass, like the creep of condensed moisture spread like crystal in patterns over a window pane. Arthur watched a few lone birds peck at the ground where horses and knights' boots had stirred it up into pocks and furrows. It was still in a way that only chill mornings could be, as if the world had stopped for a moment.

Arthur listened to the soft pat-pat of footsteps crunching across the grass toward him and smiled because the light trip and stumble could only belong to one person. He waited until Merlin came abreast of him and scooted to one side to make room on the bench. "Merlin."

"Is there a reason George brought me breakfast and then made disapproving faces at me until I'd eaten more than I normally do in a day?" Merlin studied the open space on the bench and then carefully sat at an unreasonable distance.

"I'm trying to fatten you up," Arthur replied. He offered Merlin the picked over remains from his own plate and then then grinned out one side of his mouth when Merlin merely narrowed his eyes at Arthur in suspicion. "Alright, fine. I was worried about you," Arthur admitted. "You're going to collapse eventually."

Merlin blinked his gaze down and then away, clearly embarrassed. "I'm fine."

"Are you?" Arthur asked, and for once, he could hear in his own voice that it wasn't a provocative question; he just wanted to know.

"Yeah." Merlin's face smiled wider, but his eyes dimmed a bit. "She'll never bear another child," he commented offhand, turning his head to peer quietly into the dawn. "I think that's why the gentler spells didn't work. The ability to quicken the womb is a kind of life magic. That death must have been the price for her life."

"What do you mean? What did the spell do?"

"It was a crude one," Merlin admitted. "Basically, it cauterized the wound like a firebrand. It would have left scarring, too much for a child to grow there again."

Arthur hummed and thought of the girl as he'd last seen her, sleeping in her mother's arms. "At least she's alive."

Merlin peered sidelong at Arthur, his mouth curling in a tiny kind of smirk, the way it used to, years ago when he was still just a boy, playful and irreverent. Still young. "Yeah."

It struck Arthur suddenly that Merlin wasn't young anymore. Neither of them were, of course, but somehow, Arthur hadn't expected age to show on Merlin the way it showed on other people. It did, though – perhaps more in the contrast of that glimpse of old youth, than in the lines that had crept into his face. Arthur felt his features soften, and saw it mirrored in puzzlement on Merlin's. "I didn't even know you could grow facial hair," Arthur remarked, just to break the odd weight of the moment as it approached something that Arthur didn't think he could confront just yet. "You should keep it – looks good on you."

Merlin tilted his head, still watching Arthur's face as if to parse out all of the things he wasn't saying. "It itches."

"I imagine that will pass in a few days." Not that he would know; he had tried to grow a beard once, but it looked like mange, much to Merlin's glee. He hadn't attempted it again. "Anyway, might do you good to look like a grown man. People can't take a spotty boy seriously."

Merlin rolled his eyes and relaxed back onto the bench. A tension bled out of the air between them that Arthur only noticed after it had gone. "Prat. I was never spotty."

Arthur hummed noncommittally, and when Merlin looked at him with a covert grin and narrowed eyes, Arthur bumped their shoulders together. "Promise me something, Merlin."

"What, that I won't forget your armor on the field or leave ash in your fireplace?"

"That you won't lie to me anymore."

The mirth building on Merlin's face dissipated, sinking into his skin like a shipwreck.

"I mean it," Arthur pressed, but he kept his posture open and non-accusing. "It's important that I be able to trust you – that others know that I can trust you. Especially about the magic. Do you understand?"

Merlin tried to look away a few times, but his gaze seemed drawn to Arthur's, and he couldn't break away. "I don't – "

"I'm not judging you for hiding it." Arthur twisted on the bench to face Merlin, and remained steady when it caused Merlin to lean away and draw back the hand he'd been resting between them. "But it has to stop now. Promise me, Merlin – from now on, only the truth, no matter how you think I'll react, or if you think you're protecting me. It has to stop."

It took a while for Merlin to work himself up to an answer, and Arthur wondered what was going on behind the wide blue expanse of his eyes. He seemed to be struggling, and Arthur could at least appreciate that Merlin didn't make the promise carelessly – that he treated Arthur's demand with the gravity it deserved. Finally, he said, "I want to promise you that. I do, I swear."

Arthur nodded, forcing back the indignation and suspicion that years of his father's mad crusade had pounded into him. "What's stopping you?"

"I don't – Arthur, I'm…" Merlin clenched his hands together in his lap and took a few rapid breaths, as if each one were preparatory to a shout that never came. "I want to."

Arthur watched him squirm and fight with himself, eyes darting over the field and back to his hands, or Arthur's boots, repeatedly. "Have you ever?" he asked. "Been completely honest about yourself? Your magic?"

Merlin shook his head without even thinking about it.

"Not even to your mother?"

"I didn't want to frighten her," Merlin whispered. "More than I already did. I don't know if I can, Arthur. I don't even think about it anymore."

It put Arthur at ease somehow, to hear Merlin say that. "Then I'll remind you. You will do your best never to lie or keep things from me again, and I will remind you when you need it."

Merlin nodded, licked his lips, and then looked up at Arthur with shame and gratitude both. "I can promise that."

"Good. Then it's a deal." Arthur relaxed back again and peered out across the field. "George is getting you a more suitable wardrobe, by the way."

"What? Why?" Merlin squawked. "I have clothes – there's nothing wrong with my clothes. You can't just – "

Arthur quirked an eyebrow at him. "I won't have you traipsing about in rags any longer, Merlin. It makes me look bad."

"How does what I'm wearing make you look bad? You're not wearing it." Merlin huffed at him and flapped a hand around. "We've discussed this. I've had these for years – they're fine."

"Silk is fine. Those are just…" Arthur made a face and settled on, "…sad. And I can't have my court physician looking like a pauper."

"I do not look like – "

Arthur actually had to look at Merlin to be sure he hadn't vanished in a magical puff of smoke, he went so suddenly dead quiet. "Yes, you do. It's embarrassing. To me."

Merlin made fish-mouth faces at him for a moment, and then sputtered, "You're making me court physician?"

Arthur started to smile.

"Why would you do that?"

The smile withered. "Because you deserve it?" As if it weren't obvious?

"I'm not ready for that. I don't know half the things that Gaius did – "

"Merlin, I'm pretty sure that the only person who thinks you're not ready for this is you."

"There are plenty of people who still think I'm an idiot."

Arthur shrugged. "Well, you are that. But you're also a physician in your own right, and I've seen what you can do. I wouldn't trust my health to anyone else."

"But who will mend your armor and clean your socks, draw your bath, test your food – "

"I told you to stop testing my food! It could be _poisoned_ , Merlin!"

Merlin blinked and then scoffed at him. "You are _un_ believable. Do you really expect me to make some ten year old child eat food that might be poisoned, just so that I don't have to?"

Arthur started to yell at him that yes, that was the job of food testers, but when he put it that way, it would make Arthur sound like a complete arse to say yes. So he merely punched Merlin in the shoulder instead and took a moment to sulk.

"Ow," Merlin told him, dry as the desert in the Perilous Lands. He also pointedly did not rub at the offended appendage.

"Shut up, Merlin."

They sat in ambiguous silence for a while, and Arthur listened to the birdsong fade behind the noise of the citadel coming awake. "You'll make a fine court physician. And you have magic, Merlin. Imagine what you could do with it."

Merlin grimaced down at his lap where his hands worried at the ends of his knotted belt. "I don't think raining fire is any good against sweating sickness."

"You know that's not what I mean."

"What do you mean, then?" Merlin demanded. "I'm not a healer; today wasn't how it usually goes. Every wound you received – I couldn't do anything about them."

"Maybe it was a fluke," Arthur allowed. "Or perhaps you just need practice."

"Practice," Merlin scoffed. The bitterness fell in a surprising little heap between them, drawing Arthur's startled gaze. "I can't practice magic, Arthur. In case it slipped your notice, the king forbids it."

Arthur grimaced and searched the low ceiling of cloud cover for something to say that wouldn't be trite or simply nonsensical. "Maybe that should change." When Merlin didn't reply right away, Arthur looked over to find him avoiding the sight of Arthur's profile beside him. "You don't agree?"

Merlin started to say something a few times, but it didn't come as easily as he apparently meant. Finally, he let out a breath, and the words tumbled out on the tail end of it, faint and ill-formed. "I want that more than anything."

Arthur studied the silhouette of him backlit by the dawn, a thin and wavering line of a man bent by the light around him. He thought back to the old coot in the charcoal hut, and wondered if perhaps Dragoon were more the real Merlin after all than this uncertain and weary figure before him. _All I have ever wanted is that people like me can live in peace. That those who practice magic are accepted, rather than hunted. That is all I ask._ But also, _You are asking me to save the life of a man that would have me executed._ Didn't that apply, back then at least, to Arthur just as much as Uther? There can be no place for magic in Camelot. Was that truly an endorsement of the laws, of the ban, as Arthur had originally thought? Or was it actually just an observation? "Why are you here, Merlin? Why Camelot?"

Merlin shook his head slowly, tongue wetting his lips as he lifted his head to regard the cold autumn light. "I didn't have a choice."

"That's not true. You could have gone anywhere, someplace magic isn't outlawed. You could have stayed in your own kingdom."

"Do you know what happens to sorcerers in kingdoms where magic isn't outlawed?" Merlin swiveled his head only to peer at him from hooded eyes. "We're not people there either; we're weapons that Camelot has no defense for. I'd have been made a slave for Cenred's wars if anyone ever found out. Execution is a mercy compared to that."

Arthur shook his head and diverted his gaze, because no. He hadn't known that. He hadn't considered it at all.

"And at least here, I know that if I am forced to use my magic, it's for the benefit of a good king."

Arthur scoffed. "Even my father?"

Merlin dropped his gaze and bit his lip for a moment. "Better than Cenred. Your father may not have cared for the wellbeing of people with magic, but at least he cared for the rest."

Arthur blinked a few times and then turned away, because the logic of that alone was a tragedy. He didn't think that in Merlin's shoes, he'd have been so forgiving, but he hadn't grown up in deprivation. He'd never even seen that until Merlin took him to Ealdor and showed him the way most people lived. "You know, even before I knew what you were, I could tell that someone was using magic to protect us. There's only so many monsters I can kill while unconscious before it starts looking suspicious."

Merlin blinked a few times and his gaze flickered around into the middle distance as if the answer might be there. Then he tried to grin and make light of it. "Not so sure of your prowess after all?"

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and wondered what Merlin saw when he looked off into the faraway like that. "I figured saying something would only send my father on a witch hunt." Though Uther conducted one anyway, quite literally.

Before Arthur could say anything more, Merlin voiced that exact thought. "He did that anyway."

Arthur blinked a few times, and noticed that Merlin had brought a basket along with him only because he was now lifting out one of Arthur's thick winter tunics. "I thought I told you to get rid of that; it's got a hole the size of my arm from Percival and his damn singlestick."

"Waste not, want not," Merlin quipped. "You can still wear it under your armor; nobody will see the stitching." He proceeded to grin, too many teeth in too pale a face, and fished out a bone needle and thread from the detritus at the bottom of the basket as well.

Arthur frowned at Merlin struggling to thread the needle with his too-long, fumbly fingers, like he had too many knuckles or something. "Could you use magic to do that?"

To Merlin's credit, Arthur was likely the only one would have noticed the way he stiffened and missed a beat in his threading. "Nah. Stitching comes out sloppy."

"Your stitching comes out sloppy anyway."

Merlin spared him a nasty look and then returned to his needle fumbling with a level of concentration that would have been comical from anyone else. "I'm not a seamstress," he pointed out, and then flinched.

They were both thinking of Guinevere, Arthur thought with a pang. He pushed it aside; today should be about the living. "Sometimes, I wish you'd told me about the magic. I wonder how many things might have turned out differently."

As if it meant nothing to him, Merlin smiled gently to himself and said, "You'd have chopped my head off, for one." He finally got the thread through the eye and began fiddling with the tunic.

"I don't know what I'd have done," Arthur replied, but they both knew it was something of a lie. Running him through would have been more likely, though. And he would have regretted it.

Merlin shrugged, reaching through sleeves to turn the garment inside out and expose the inner seams. "You have enough to worry about without me complicating things. Besides." He tugged the tunic into a smooth line and set a stitch to hold things where he wanted them. "You obviously didn't want to hear it."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Merlin chuffed, but it wasn't a merry sound. "That you have known for…a while, apparently, and you haven't done anything." He faced the tunic as he spoke, poking the needle with what seemed to Arthur to be unnecessary drama. "You didn't arrest me, or pardon me, or even question me. You just ignored it entirely. You didn't want to deal with it."

"That's hindsight." Arthur stood and paced around the bench, agitated.

"Still valid."

Arthur scowled at the dew encrusted field. "Surely you thought about it."

"You never would have chosen me over your father, and you would have hated yourself for it. I didn't want to put you in that position."

Arthur shook his head, tried to think of some way to continue this conversation logically, and then merely glared at Merlin. "No. You came here, to Camelot – the last place your kind is wanted. Where you are _hunted_. And you _stayed_. That wasn't for me. Living the way you have, like half of a man, that isn't something you do for someone else's sake." He turned away.

Merlin's frown was deafening where it roared at Arthur's back. "Why not?"

"Because no one is that good!" He spun around to find Merlin blinking at him, needle buried into the woolen tunic and mostly forgotten. "Not even you."

He expected to receive back as much anger as he hurled forth. It should have been anger that lit Merlin's face in response. Or maybe defensiveness, and a litany of excuses or justifications. Instead, Merlin's nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw in something less identifiable. "No. No, you don't get to demand – "

"I'm the bloody king, Merlin. I can demand whatever – "

"I had no choice! What else am I supposed to do, Arthur – what else am I even _good_ for?! Do you think I _wanted_ this? I have no life outside of you. How is that for my benefit? I get nothing from this!"

"I didn't ask that of you."

"How did you not?" Merlin twitched his face away and then down to worry at the frayed threads of Arthur's ripped tunic. "It's been years, hasn't it? Since you found out? You know what I've been doing, you turned a blind eye so that I could keep doing it. I'm a rubbish servant and you know it. The only thing I'm good for that George isn't is magic, and Camelot has no other weapon against that."

Arthur twitched because he hadn't thought that at all. And he certainly didn't consider Merlin to be a _weapon_ …did he? It occurred to Arthur that they were having two entirely different arguments here, and he had no idea what Merlin's was about. "You never had to defend us – no one was forcing you."

"Do you really think I could have done _nothing_ and lived with myself? I couldn't even bear to let Tom die, and he was only one person. There are thousands here now. And hundreds more in the countryside – there's no way not to hear it when they're all screaming."

"I know," Arthur snapped, because he did know. "But you didn't have to come _here_ in the first place. You didn't have to be _my_ servant, _my_ protector! You risked death every day just for existing, and you _didn't have to_!"

"I had nowhere else to go," Merlin said, and finally, there was rage, but it wasn't at Arthur, and it wasn't loud. It was quiet, and it cut. "I had no skills, no prospects, there wasn't a village in fifty miles would have taken me in, I was useless. I had to come here – I couldn't stay in Ealdor, they were starting to notice, and what Gaius needed help with, at least that much I knew how to do."

"But surely," Arthur pressed, like a dog at a foxhole, "surely this isn't the life you wanted."

"The life I _wanted_?" Merlin's breath kicked up as if he were running, or perhaps getting ready to throw a punch. "No one ever asked me what I wanted. It was all just go here Merlin, and do this Merlin – " He flung his hands out as he said this, as if to bare his breast to a sword. "Kill this person, and let that one die, and it doesn't matter who's innocent or not, or who you betray, or what you think, or if it rips your heart out, because doing the right thing could have _unintended consequences_ and you'll just screw up the whole bloody world if you don't shut up and do as you're told!"

Arthur shook his head and took a step back, uncomfortably aware of the feeling that the air was vibrating. All Arthur could do was repeat, "I didn't ask that of you."

Merlin shuddered to stillness and stared at him as if Arthur had said something horrible to him. "Everything I am is for you. Everything I have done has been for you. You keep demanding some other explanation, when there isn't one. I haven't had a chance to make another reason, to _want_ something else – I have nothing _but_ you."

Arthur had no idea what that meant – he didn't have a frame of reference for such a thing. He thought about what Gaius had told him about prophecy and demands. He wanted to say something to differentiate himself from druids and goddesses and dragons, but he wasn't sure that he could, not honestly. "What do you expect me to say? Thank you?" It came out more confrontational than he intended.

Thankfully, Merlin didn't quite rise to the bait. He did sort of waver though, his frame bending oddly as if he meant to slide sideways and disappear into the boundary wall. "Never that," he breathed.

Arthur hazarded a few steps forward, and Merlin simply watched him come. "I know you've saved my life before, more times than I know. I haven't exactly been grateful, I'll admit."

Merlin shook his head and turned his face away, as if Arthur had missed the whole point.

"What _do_ you want?" Arthur finally asked. "As your life. What do you want from it?"

Merlin opened his mouth to reply, but only a scoff came out, disbelieving and tragic. "How should I know? I can't have something else."

"Why? Is it all of this – this destiny nonsense? What does any of it matter?"

Merlin shook his head a few more times and looked off to the side of the field, eyes unfocused. "I should leave you to your practice, sire." He straightened and made to gather up the now mangled sewing.

Arthur grabbed him by the upper arm and forced him back. It took more strength than he had expected; Merlin resisted the attempt to make him stay in the conversation. "No. You're not leaving until this is done."

Merlin shoved at Arthur's chest, but Arthur wouldn't budge. "This _is_ done," he said lowly. Had he been anyone else, the look on his face might have raised the hairs on Arthur's neck. As it was, he felt something ethereal in the still morning shatter, and realized that it was the threat of magic rising out of the spaces between the air itself.

"No." Arthur probably should have been more afraid than he actually was. Merlin was… He was powerful. And not entirely in control lately, but Arthur trusted him not to hurt him. He had to trust that much. "Explain it to me, Merlin. I want to understand."

"No, you don't," Merlin scoffed.

"Yes," Arthur countered, leaning over him where he still sat. "I do." He could smell mildew and the chill wet of a cavern. "Do you think you're alone in this, in what you've been doing?" Arthur could tell from the way Merlin tried to avert his gaze that yes, he did. "Merlin this is not your burden – it never was, and you never should have had to bear it. The responsibility for the good of this kingdom is mine," Arthur continued. " _Listen_ to me." He shook Merlin hard enough to clack his teeth together and make him grunt in protest. "It's on me. Do you understand? I'm the king. I alone am responsible. You will not pay the price for my ignorance any longer."

It was ugly, the look on Merlin's face. Arthur had no idea what he was fighting, exactly, only that it wasn't necessarily Arthur himself. "You wouldn't say that if you knew."

"Yes, I would." Arthur had managed to shove Merlin back into the bench, and he crouched between Merlin's knees now, forcing him to shrink back to maintain propriety, because he knew that it would keep Merlin in place far more effectively than force. "We have all done awful things in defense of this kingdom, things we maybe shouldn't have. Things that were wrong. We have _all_ betrayed someone. And we all have to live with that."

Merlin went alarmingly rigid and pale like fresh linen; his eyes appeared wide in spite of the whites not showing. It was the shadow of that boy, fifteen summers fresh, who walked into a shining, towered city to start his new life and witnessed an execution instead. The previously still morning stirred into a firm breeze and Arthur watched Merlin's fingers clamp down hard on the edge of the bench he was sat upon, as if to keep himself in check. A few stray autumn leaves fluttered past and then tumbled to a standstill as the acrid static faded again. "I don't want to kill people. But I have to. To protect you. It's what I'm for."

Arthur wondered, with a sudden and terrible clarity, if that was why Hunith sent him here in the first place – not to try and give him a better prospect in life, but because she was afraid that he was dangerous. And he _was_ dangerous. From what little Arthur had seen of Merlin's magic, it was elemental and strong – even volatile at times. And Merlin had hinted that staying in Ealdor would have gone badly for him. Arthur had never fully understood why – not in depth. It was a horrible thought, because no one could doubt Hunith's love for her son, but why send him to the one place where sorcerers were summarily executed, if not to ensure that should he turn out to be unsafe – incapable of controlling his magic, unable to learn restraint – that he would be surrounded by people who would stop him? Gaius hadn't dealt with magic in decades; he could have offered little in the way of training. But he _was_ a loyal subject of Uther, and a man who had betrayed countless others of magic. Gaius had come to love Merlin like a son, but that had grown with time. In the beginning, Arthur did not think that Gaius would have hesitated to turn him in, had he been a threat to anyone.

He couldn't think of that now; it was immaterial, and Gaius was dead. They would never know for certain now. Arthur's hand wandered from Merlin's bicep to the back of his neck, squeezing and shaking to make him pay attention. "I have allowed you to suffer for my sake. I will admit that," Arthur told him, more winded than the simple struggle accounted for. The picture in his mind would not leave him, of Merlin being put down like a rabid dog for something he couldn't control. He kept his voice even in spite of it. Calm. "I have turned a blind eye and let you do all of the things I couldn't, or wouldn't do. Agravaine. Morg…" Arthur's voice caught on a thickness in his throat; he swallowed and forced himself to say instead, "My sister. I refused to see what was in front of me – I failed to adequately protect my kingdom from them. I was weak, and I couldn't face the thought of another betrayal, or of killing someone I had once loved, so you did it for me, and I let you. I know, Merlin. Maybe not everything, but enough, and for long enough. I let you be the monster, and I refused to admit that I did it so that if I ever had to blame someone for it, I could blame you. It was cowardly, Merlin." His voice shook with the admission, but he owed Merlin that much. "I'm a coward. And I'm sorry."

Merlin bit his lip and breathed wetly through his nose for a moment, staring at Arthur as if he couldn't comprehend what he'd said. "But I have magic. You hate magic."

Arthur swallowed, because yes, he did, and however beautiful it had been to see life unfurl again in Elise's dying body, one miracle couldn't change that. His experience, more than his father's ravings, had taught him that magic was dangerous. That it hurt and used and killed. But experience was showing him the other side of magic too; he was looking at it. It was terrifying and blindly loyal, and Arthur knew that no one should have ever entrusted it to him because he _had_ misused it. He had wielded Merlin like a weapon, and neither of them had even noticed. "I can no longer afford that luxury."

His voice thick with all of things he appeared to be choking back, Merlin said, "I killed your father."

Arthur shook his head, not quite a negation – it was too subtle a motion for that. "No, you didn't. I will never believe that. Odin killed my father. Not you. That assassin was meant for me, for a wrong that I did to him. If anyone is to blame for my father's murder, then it is me. Not you."

Merlin mumbled the word _no_ to himself a few times, and then shook his head violently. "But it was _my_ magic that killed him. _I_ struck the death blow."

" _Stop_ it." Arthur breathed harsh through his nose for a moment and eyed Merlin with what he suspected came unfortunately close to disgust. "I'll hear no more of this."

Merlin's voice stopped him as he started to rise and move away to give him space. "You said you wanted to know. I'm telling you – "

"That's not what you're doing!" Arthur spun back, but kept his shoulder pointed at Merlin in a defensive stance, his hands spread open at his sides. "What have you done that you think is so awful?"

"I saved her." Merlin made a visible effort to collect his wits and calm his breathing, remaining sprawled in false languor on the bench as if to make a meek target of himself on purpose. It was terrifying to watch, this chilly calm. However visibly his emotions roiled, they remained trapped beneath the surface, behind the mask of the idiot that he wore every day. "I made her fall down the stairs, but then I couldn't… I knew what she'd do. I saw it in the crystal, and everyone told me to let her die, but I couldn't do it."

Arthur shook his head, at a loss and frustrated because of it. "What are you talking about?"

"Morgana." Merlin forced himself to swallow, though it appeared that something tried to come back up. "I could have stopped her."

This wasn't the least bit constructive anymore, and Arthur fought to maintain his own composure. "Enough of this. I won't listen to this."

"I healed her," Merlin persisted. Faint though it was, his voice was neither hesitant nor weak. Merlin rotated a shoulder and added, "With magic," as if it even needed to be said.

"Stop being stupid. Do you seriously expect me to hate you because you're not a murderer?"

" _How many people are dead now because of what I did?_ " Merlin shouted. "Lancelot, your father…? How many do you think the dorocha killed, how many knights died defending Camelot from her attacks? How many druids did Morgana torture? Kill? Coerce? How many villagers died by her army, how many ancient orders did she wipe out for refusing to side with her?" He choked himself silent for a moment. "Gwen."

Arthur went numb for a heartbeat; he could feel it like sick heat as it billowed through his body. "I told you, you are not responsible for what happened to Guinevere."

Merlin shook his head. "You're wrong." The words sounded as if he'd torn them from his own throat. "I knew what Morgana was, and I still saved her. Everything she did after that was my fault. I let her live. And I had so many chances to fix that, Arthur. So many, but I didn't – I didn't want to have to kill her."

"Stop!" Arthur lunged into his space and felt a sick triumph at the way Merlin scrambled back against the bench. "You didn't force Morgana to do anything – she chose her path herself."

"That's not how it works."

"How _what_ works?" Arthur demanded. He was breathing heavily, his heart racing too fast. He may have also been shouting. "I swear to god, Merlin, if this is another of your _idiotic_ destiny things, I will – " Of course, he wouldn't do much of anything, and he certainly wouldn't hit him. "Enough! You are never to bring this up again, do you understand me?" He shook Merlin for emphasis, only then realizing that he'd grabbed him by the shoulders and was holding him pinned to the bench like a moth.

Merlin looked like he wanted to argue, but he swallowed it back and dropped his gaze, his mouth screwed up as if his tongue tasted unpleasant. "Yes, sire."

Arthur shoved him pointlessly harder into the bench and then flung himself in the opposite direction to pace an angry circle around it. He came to rest with one hand gripping the bench back, staring unseeing at the field as his heart finally slowed its rhythm. His knuckles pressed into the knob of Merlin's shoulder and in his periphery, he could see the angry cant of Merlin's body, still huddled where Arthur had put him. Merlin's fury had always been a silent thing. Most of Merlin, for that matter – the true part, the uncensored part – was made up of silent things.

Arthur looked down and swallowed. "When I first realized what you were, I almost killed you. I walked away from my vigil over my father's body intending to call the guard to arrest you for regicide. But you weren't running – you weren't even going about your own business. You were just sitting there, waiting for me." He could feel Merlin twitch against the back of his fingers and twist to look up at him, but Arthur kept his eyes down where his boots met the gravel. "Then I thought about keeping you close to see what you'd do. To use it to our advantage. Except, there wasn't anything. You just kept washing my socks and trying to die for me." He looked down at Merlin, at the crown of his head, and the faint shine of a scar at his hairline, trying desperately to make him understand that such waste would not be tolerated anymore.

Merlin sucked on his lips and looked away to avoid the need to respond to any of that.

"Is that when you found out?"

"You never change your boots, Dragoon," Arthur replied gently. He took a breath of the sort one took before diving into a lake, and strolled back around the bench. "They were dangling right there in my hands when you kicked me like a plow horse."

Merlin appeared disgusted with himself for a moment.

Arthur sank back down to sit beside Merlin just a little too close. "Do you remember when Morgana was crowned queen?"

Merlin looked up, his eyes wide and liquid. "Of course I do."

"You didn't side with her. You didn't spy for her, or give me up to her. You wouldn't even let me make a fool of myself and be captured all on my own. And when you had the chance, you attacked her. I know it was you, Merlin. I don't know how, but you stopped her army. And it wasn't her first army, was it?"

Merlin choked over an aborted swallow and averted his face.

"The Knights of Medhir – that was you. You stopped them too."

Thick with something unnamed, Merlin protested, "Arthur – "

"And the undead army that Cenred and Morgause rose from within our own walls." Arthur spoke right over him. "You almost told me then, didn't you. In the throne room, just before my father announced Morgana as the day's savior. That was your work she took credit for."

Merlin rocked a bit and then stopped himself shaking his head in the negative because he had just made Arthur a promise. Arthur appreciated the effort it must have taken to nod instead, and confirm that yes, he was the unsung hero that day. It worried Arthur, though, how Merlin shook for the briefest moment afterwards. What was it like, he wondered, to hold your secrets so close, bury them so deep, that accepting credit for your good deeds could instill such terror? Like being flayed to remove the false skin of your body, only to find the insides laid bare after all? Arthur wondered how much of Merlin might be left once he stripped away the artifice and the mask, and all of the lies within which he had sequestered himself just to stay alive.

"When I realized that she was working against us, it was clear that someone else had to be working against her. She didn't destroy her own army, and the only other person in the catacombs with her on that day was you. I didn't exactly connect it to magic at the time, but I knew then that you were more than you let on." Arthur made an apologetic sound. "That you had secrets."

Merlin's lungs seized and he had to visibly force himself to breathe again.

"You aren't a fighter, Merlin – you can barely hold a sword without stabbing yourself. It wasn't blade that brought them to heal; it was a more powerful magic than theirs. It took me an embarrassingly long time to put all of it together."

"It was mostly just dumb luck," Merlin countered, but his voice juddered and rocked like a fishing boat riding a storm at sea.

Arthur grinned, baring his teeth just a bit because he could actually picture that – Merlin fumbling his way into defeating two powerful sorceresses and then tripping over the rubble on his way out. "And Sigan? No one ever asked how his life force left Cedric and ended up back in the crystal – the crystal that you were holding when it was over. It would have taken magic. You fought the most powerful sorcerer Camelot has ever known, and you won. Tell me, Merlin. Is that how it went?"

Merlin clutched at himself, arms wrapped tight over his soft underbelly, and nodded. "I had help," he admitted. "I didn't know the spell on my own; it's lost magic." He couldn't look at Arthur, though, while he spoke.

"It was still you that cast it." That was probably enough, for now. Arthur didn't want to be cruel, and it seemed cruel just then to force Merlin to acknowledge his own deeds. Merlin could have been a knight, to judge by his deeds alone. For a moment, Arthur fancied that he saw a bit of Lancelot in Merlin, but after a moment's thought, he decided that it was probably rather the opposite. Lancelot had been good and noble – ridiculously so – but until the crisis of the torn veil, he had not made the calculated, knowing decision to give himself up for the good of others, not the way that Merlin had repeatedly. Merlin's nobility wasn't for anything. It wasn't to prove himself, or to win accolades, or to obtain a title or make up for things lost, or even to be thanked at all. It just was. Selfless without recognition or reward – a faceless knight errant, content with obscurity. Which begged Arthur to ask one last question, because he had to know. "The questing beast."

Merlin stilled himself and took several deep breaths, humming with each exhale the way a child might sooth itself in the dark.

"What did you do? No one would speak of it to me after I recovered, but I know I was dying. What did you do?"

"I – " Merlin gathered himself again, and again started, "I – " The force of cutting off his own words looked for a moment like the heave before some men vomited from nerves before a battle.

Arthur swallowed and glanced out at the deceptive peace of the field – at the squires far away down the pitch, setting up targets and dragging out racks of practice weapons and gear. Then he twisted on the bench and faced Merlin straight on. "I have read that the bite of the questing beast requires magic to heal – life magic. My father insisted otherwise at the time, but the fact of it is that someone had to trade their life for mine. I know you went to the isle, more than once, and I believe that you meant to do it – give your life in trade for mine. Which I don't approve of, by the way, but we can deal with your apparent death wish later. Something happened – something went wrong and that sorceress never bothered us again."

"Nimueh." Merlin nodded a few times in confirmation. "She's dead."

Arthur peered at him without giving away his own thoughts. "You have a habit of killing high priestesses of the old religion."

Merlin retorted, "They have a habit of trying to kill you. And it paid the debt – _her_ debt. She sent the questing beast in the first place – it's her fault there was any life debt at all."

"Fair enough." Arthur tilted his head. "Life magic is supposed to be hard to control. The books I've read say that only the most powerful sorcerers can wield it – that it takes time and skill to learn, and that most still fail. But you don't seem practiced – none of your magic does. It's a bit…" Arthur rolled his hand in the air is if to gather the right word back to himself. "…untempered." A dull, misshapen sword. It doesn't cut clean, but it still hacks its way through.

"Elemental," Merlin replied, an echo of Arthur's own earlier assumptions. "It's earth magic; I don't know what else to call it. I never really studied – there wasn't anything to study. I have a basic spell book that Gaius gave me, but I haven't used much of it. Some of it, I can't, and some of it…" He made a nonspecific gesture. "Some of it, I probably shouldn't."

Arthur nodded and maintained his bland exterior. "How powerful are you, then? If you can control the balance of life and death without knowing how you do it – if you can cast without words the way I think I've seen – what else can you do?"

Merlin shook his head, seemingly as disturbed on the outside by the question as Arthur was on the inside, asking it. "I don't know," he breathed. "I never tried to find out."

"I see." He didn't, though. After a moment's thought, Arthur reached over to hook a finger in Merlin's shirt collar. He ignored the violent flinch and the even more violent immobility that stole over Merlin at the motion. Arthur peeled the tunic to one side and then tugged it down to reveal the starburst scar of burnt skin where it spread puckered and old just below Merlin's heart. He traced a single finger over the ridge lines at the edge. "You are good for more than just killing. If you've never had an opportunity to see that before, then that's on me for never giving you the chance."

Merlin opened his mouth and then just sort of closed it again like a fish gulping air. The dark bristles of hair and beard on his face, across his upper lip, made the gesture softer somehow, and set his skin paler. He raised his eyes toward the open field, but they weren't focused anything. Arthur took note of how they swam with sunlight over the blue iris.

"There's also a scar on your back from a serkhet sting, which should have killed you. And another on the back of your neck that looks like someone cut into it more than once."

Merlin swallowed again and nodded, his fingers clenching over his sides as he continued to hug himself into stillness.

Arthur let go of his tunic and reached back to tug the fabric back down over knobby spine and up over the stark cups of collar bones, covering the old marks along with the faded yellow bruising from Arthur's fingers, and the darker, fresher injuries from the night Gaius died. "I want you tell me how you got all of them. Not now, but someday." He tried not to sound disappointed, but he was, and he didn't think he managed to conceal it very well. The long wait to start a conversation about these things was as much his own fault as Merlin's, and as for Merlin's anxiety about putting any of it into words, Arthur wasn't sure who to blame for that. He wondered if Merlin had been like this with Gaius too, or if it were something about Arthur himself that made it so difficult.

Merlin's hand crept up to crimp the tunic closed over his throat, protecting himself from Arthur's scrutiny. His voice scratchy and hoarse, he replied, "Yes, sire."

It was not in any way the response that Arthur had been hoping for, but it would have to be enough. He scooted back to the other end of the bench in the hopes that Merlin might unclench if given some space.

Out of nowhere, Merlin offered, "I've done things I'm not proud of. A lot of things, actually."

Arthur glanced sidelong at him and then away again when Merlin continued staring straight ahead from beneath the hair that had grown too long and fallen over his brow, eyes shadowed. "So have I. We all have regrets, Merlin."

Merlin shook his head. "It's more than that."

For a long while, Arthur didn't say anything. A few knights arrived on the field and began warming up, running through solo formations with their swords. Arthur eyed their footwork mostly out of habit. "Do you ever feel like…everything went wrong somewhere?"

Merlin blinked himself from his thoughts and turned to look at Arthur. He remained curled around himself like a living cloak, a vertical fold of arms up around his own body, holding it closed. His fingers worried at the collar of his tunic where Arthur had bared him a moment ago.

"As if we're living the wrong lives, or living this one…" Arthur groped for the right word, his fingers actually grappling with the air. "…wrong. Like we're not the right people, exactly."

A few birds scattered in a chirping flurry past their bench, and Merlin frowned hard at him. "Are you alright?"

Arthur gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head at his own feet. "Never mind."

"No, it's just – " Merlin cut himself off, but his face brightened with interest. "You don't usually hold court with destiny."

"No," Arthur agreed sourly. "But I get this feeling sometimes like this isn't how things were supposed to be." He peered at Merlin again. "Didn't you say once that my reign is supposed to be a golden age?"

Merin smirked a bit. "No, I said that you were destined to be Albion's greatest king."

"I'm not Albion's king at all," Arthur pointed out. He watched the playfulness fade from Merlin's face. "And I'm certainly not a great king of Camelot."

Merlin tipped his head and regarded Arthur sideways. "Are you fishing for compliments, or am I actually supposed to answer that?"

"Are you actually going to sit there, a sorcerer, and try to convince me that I'm any better than my father?"

Tellingly, Merlin looked away to hide his expression.

"The Once and Future King," Arthur mused out loud, aware of Merlin's wince. "Do you know, when I was a boy, I tried to convince my father that I was supposed to be living with Sir Ector."

Merlin's face twitched back in his direction, and he seemed to be trying to figure out if that were a joke or not.

Arthur grinned, however forced, to let him know it was alright to laugh. "I insisted that I should be mucking Ector's stables and fetching lances for Sir Kay."

After a moment's thought, perhaps to picture that, Merlin laughed. It peeled out bright and unexpected, and Arthur couldn't help his answering chuckle when Merlin seemed startled at his own happiness. "You? A stable boy?"

"I even followed him back to his lands once. Father sent two dozen knights out after me, convinced I'd been kidnapped by sorcerers or handed off to the Druids – he was livid when they found me covered in manure and sleeping in a hay loft in Ector's stable. No one even recognized me, and Sir Kay swore up and down that he thought I'd been there since I could toddle."

Merlin's face split with his laughter, his teeth shining for a moment before he bit down on his lip, still smiling. "I told my mum once that I was supposed to be a hermit in a cave with lots of fog. She had to send half the town after me once; they thought I'd been attacked by wild animals or something."

Arthur scoffed. "You wouldn't last a day as a hermit, no one's ear to talk off. You can't even catch your own food without getting all weepy."

"Oh, you're one to talk, mister can't sleep without his extra fluffy bedroll."

"I'm the king; I shouldn't have to sleep rough."

"Prat."

"Clotpole."

"Still my word." Merlin made a happy little sound as he contemplated this new information. "You know how I told you I had a vague memory of my father?"

Arthur's face softened. "Yeah, I remember."

"In my mind, growing up, he was a Roman. Or he dressed like one, anyway. Some war leader or something. Tall. I know it wasn't real – my father left before my mum even knew she was pregnant. I couldn't have seen him before, and I know better now, of course. He wasn't a Roman, or anything like that. But it's still there, you know? I can picture him and everything, covered in light. I wanted to be like him. When I met my real father…" The smile faded and a sort of melancholy took its place. "I was disappointed. It felt like I'd been cheated." He pursed his lips and picked as his fingernails. "It passed, of course. He was…noble. In a way. I think." He shrugged and raised his face toward the lowly rising sun. "I didn't get a chance to find out for sure."

Arthur stared unseeing at the ground and rubbed his thumb into his opposite palm. "My father's brother was a Roman soldier, more or less."

"I didn't know he had any siblings."

"They grew up in Brittany with the legions there, after Vortigern betrayed their father and usurped him." Arthur raised his eyes to the field where runners were setting up archery targets, his face brooding. "They didn't get on very well. He was killed - my uncle. Poisoned by a man posing as a physician in his war camp."

"I'm sorry," Merlin offered, though it was clear he wasn't sure why the sympathy was warranted, if Arthur never knew him. "Does that mean you have cousins in Brittany or something?"

"I might," Arthur replied. He looked down and let out a long breath. "I had one here, once. Nobody talked about him. The staff were forbidden from mentioning certain things to me, and he was apparently one of them."

Merlin snorted. "Why? What did he do?"

"As far as I can tell, his only crime was being my uncle's bastard son, and a sorcerer."

Merlin was silent beside him for a long time, and then he took care when he asked, "What happened to him?"

"What do you think happened? My father had him burned at the stake," Arthur said.

"He was Uther's nephew," Merlin said in disbelief.

Arthur nodded. "But he was a sorcerer too. And in point of fact, his claim to the throne may have superseded my father's, whatever anyone else thinks."

"He challenged Uther's claim?"

Arthur laughed, a mean little sound. "No, actually. As far as I've been told, he wanted nothing to do with it. Geoffrey said he called me the Once and Future King too. He wanted me to inherit, he just didn't think much of my father."

They both sat in silence for a moment, digesting this new information where it fell between them, and then Merlin said, "Mum named me for her mum's half-brother."

Arthur didn't look at him, but he felt his blood run cold in his veins, because it abruptly occurred to him that he should have known - should have figured this out before now. All this time, he had been trying desperately to parse out Merlin's birthright, and here Arthur was, bellowing out the answer practically every time he hollered for his manservant, ignorant. _There's something about you, Merlin._

"Said he was special, like me, but she also said he wasn't quite right in the head once. I'm pretty sure he died in the purge, but mum doesn't talk about him. She doesn't like thinking about her family, I think. Or what happened to them. I don't even know her parents' names. Don't think either of them had magic, though. And mum definitely doesn't."

Arthur felt unmoored, as if the earth were dropping out from underneath him. Surely, it could not be this easy. Or this…this terrible? "Maybe she was trying to protect you." Merlin came from Essetir; whatever Geoffrey said, his name could be a common one in those lands. And many families were complicated.

Merlin shrugged. "From what? I knew I was magic, and what happens to people like me if we're caught. It wasn't like she could protect me from that."

Arthur swallowed to dislodge a blockage in his throat, and fiddled with his fingernails. He could not make this assumption. Not without proof, certainly not without _something_ other than these coincidences and a similarity of names. But he believed it. It felt like the truth. "I think my father ruined something. And that's why all of this – " He flapped his hand about in disgust as if to encompass the whole of the world, or maybe just their world. " – is…is like it is now." Like looking at his life solely via its reflection in the shining curve of a well-polished plackart – distorted and tunneled. "Because this is certainly not a golden age, and I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can do now to make it one. Too many – too much – has died already. There is no Albion left to unite."

"I don't believe that's true."

In spite of himself, Arthur smiled, a sad little thing creeping in unwanted from the edges of his mouth. Merlin's belief in him never wavered. Usually, it terrified Arthur, it was such a blind thing, but just then, he thought that maybe he needed the reassurance. "Don't ever change, Merlin." He looked over, aware that he probably looked at Merlin with far too much fondness to be easily dismissed, but for once, he didn't care. Merlin tilted his head at him, his face shifting between exasperated affection and concern for Arthur's mood. It was so normal of him that Arthur let his mouth crease and turn up farther. "I want you to always be you. We need that, I think."

Merlin gave a hesitant grin, uncertain how to take him at the moment. "What, completely unwarranted optimism?"

"Faith," Arthur corrected. Though in the past, he had likely valued Merlin's less than he should have. He recalled ridiculing it more than once, actually. And yet the same sentiments from Guinevere's lips had been welcome – why should the two be so different?

Merlin's expression turned complicated, but his eyes went soft. "Always."

 _Arthur left the villagers of Ealdor milling about in the common area, cleaning up the mess and scatter of belongings, farm implements, food and tools that Kanen's men had left behind. He had noted Merlin's general direction when he ran after that pessimistic young man, William, but it took him a few moments to pick out the sounds of an argument and trace it to a small hut on the edge of the village, if it could truly be called that with so few buildings standing so close together and mixed in with the animal enclosures. It had been Arthur's original intent to have it out with the obnoxious young man, but the argument he overheard gave him pause, and he hovered outside a window, uncertain._

 _" – thought he was pompous and arrogant."_

 _Arthur rolled his eyes and listened to a lot of clunking around – furniture being righted and belongings set back where they belonged._

 _"Well, nothing's changed there then."_

 _"BUT…in time I came to respect him for what he stands for, what he does."_

 _Arthur felt the edge of his mouth curl and immediately checked himself. It didn't matter if Merlin respected him. Or rather, it mattered, but he was the prince – Merlin was supposed to respect him. It shouldn't make Arthur happy to think he'd earned the good opinion of a peasant; he didn't have to earn that. His rank afforded it to him by right._

 _"Yeah, I know what he stands for."_

 _Arthur crept to the window and eased over until he could see that pompous toad William straightening a…was that a chainmail shirt? Yes. Arthur straightened and felt the majority of his anger slough away like a bird molting its old ragged feathers. Armor and a tunic bearing Cenred's crest were hung up on a wooden cross like an empty scarecrow. He could see the tearing where the deathblow pierced through, the fabric still edged in old, dark dried blood. It was set up like a shrine, facing the room, in a place of honor, stark testimony to the empty place in that home – a loss etched too deep to fade with time._

 _William kept speaking, and Arthur could hear, now, the veneer of arrogance overlaying some festering hurt like a wound that seeped beneath bandages wrapped too tightly over broken ribs for the breath to come easy. "Princes, kings, all men like him."_

 _From out of sight behind the curtain that divided the hut into rooms, Arthur heard Merlin say, "Will, don't bring what happened to your father into this." He sounded both as if he took care to say the words with just the right amount of sympathy, and also as if he'd said something like it before and had it go poorly._

 _"I'm not," William snapped, his voice sharp like broken glass. He went on the offensive then, as boys do when they're hurt and need to lash out just to dam the tears they didn't want to shed. "Why are you defending him so much? You're just his servant."_

 _"He's also my friend."_

 _"Friends don't lord it over one another."_

 _"He isn't like that."_

 _"Really?" Skeptical, and mean spirited, but perhaps that last could be forgiven. "Well, let's wait until the fighting begins and see who he sends in to die first. I guarantee you, it won't be him."_

 _"I trust Arthur with my life."_

 _Arthur smiled in spite of himself, because no matter his rank, he did value Merlin's trust. Of course, Merlin was kind of an idiot, and he wasn't exactly discriminating, so perhaps it was less of compliment and more a testament to Merlin's clear mental affliction._

 _But then William countered, "Is that so? So he knows your secret, then?"_

 _Arthur took care to breath quietly, waiting for an assurance that never came. It only occurred to him in that telling silence that he couldn't imagine what kind of secret Merlin, of all people, might have. He was…he was Merlin. He didn't have secrets; he could never keep one, for starters. He was just a boy who couldn't manage to pour wine without making a mess of himself and half the table. Wasn't he?_

 _He had also saved Arthur's life twice. Clumsy could only forgive so much._

 _"Face it, Merlin. You're living a lie, just like you were here." To William's credit, he did sound as if he regretted saying that. "You're Arthur's servant, nothing more. Otherwise, you'd tell him the truth."_

 _Arthur strained to hear Merlin's reply, but the only sounds after that were of picking things up and then sweeping. He turned and leaned against the outside of the hut, sinking down to crouch on the balls of his feet. It shouldn't matter if Merlin had secrets; all men had secrets. It also shouldn't matter that maybe not every part of Merlin's life revolved around Arthur; he was a servant, a freeman, not a slave. He wasn't indentured to Arthur, no matter that Uther had "gifted" Merlin to him. A freeman was entitled to keep his own counsel. Arthur had no business feeling betrayed by it. He also wouldn't mistake Merlin again, though. He couldn't afford to lose sight of the truth, or of the imperfection of men._

 _Arthur wiped his hands on his trouser legs and stood. It was stupid anyway, caring at all. He wasn't here for Merlin; he was here to right a wrong at the failure of a neighboring king. That was the job and duty of a knight, and that was all he was doing here. Arthur nodded to himself and took a deep breath to rid himself of whatever melancholy he'd fallen prey to. There was work to be done now._

"Hurry up, Merlin!"

"Coming!" He nearly ran into Arthur on the stairs because he was messing with the laces on his new tunic. Not that he knew it was his – technically, it was Arthur's, but it was too tight around his stomach and he couldn't wear it. Not that he was admitting that to Merlin. As far as Merlin was concerned, Arthur needed him to attend council to be put forth as the new court physician, Merlin had been wearing the same clothes for more than a day, including napping in them, and there was no time for him to go back to his room to wash and change. So he washed in Arthur's basin, and was borrowing some of Arthur's less-worn clothes. Arthur would just refuse to take them back later.

Arthur leaned back to avoid them both going arse over teakettle down the stairs, and smacked his hands away. "If you didn't dress me every day, I'd think you were incapable of handling clothing at all. Just hold still." He slapped at Merlin's errant hand again and then kept a purposefully straight face when Merlin glared at him. How he managed to completely mangle the laces in less than a candlemark, Arthur would never know, but there it was. He tugged and fiddled for a moment, aware of Merlin going preternaturally still on the stair above him, and then paused to see why. "Ah. Lord Aymer. Anything I can do for you?"

Merlin was barely breathing now, and his eyes, slightly too wide, were fixed on a point above Arthur's head.

"I – sire, my apologies." Lord Aymer dithered for a moment, which gave Arthur time to finish untangling Merlin's tunic laces. "I'll just…"

"Of course," Arthur chirped. He really shouldn't be getting such a perverse amount of pleasure from Aymer's discomfiture. Or from Merlin's for that matter. "I shall see you at council shortly, Lord Aymer."

Aymer nodded, angling away but stealing sidelong glances at the spectacle of the king stood a step below his manservant, and apparently assisting said manservant with getting his clothing in order. "Sire." He wandered away after another confused glance.

Merlin's muscles uncoiled. "Do you have any idea what kind of gossip this is going to start?"

"Shut up, Merlin." He did know, actually. It was sure to entertain him for months. "There." He patted the freshly tied laces and fluffed Merlin's neckerchief back into place. It looked incongruous against the nicer fabric of the new tunic, but neither one of them wanted to show off the bruises that Arthur had left, and it wasn't as if Arthur owned anything so banal as a neckerchief to give him along with the rest of the outfit.

Merlin's cheek twitched in such a manner that he must have clenched his jaw.

"Relax, Merlin." Arthur turned and continued on his way.

Eventually, Merlin followed, his footsteps more hesitant. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I am." He took a moment to examine Merlin's body language more carefully. "But I won't force you to take it. I hope you will, because your reasons for hesitating are dumb, but if you really don't want to be the court physician, then…I'll understand." He paused. "I mean, your reasons will still be dumb, but I'll understand that."

"You'll understand that my reasons are dumb?"

"See? Now you're catching on."

"Arthur." Merlin plucked just hard enough at Arthur's sleeve that he stopped to engage. "I like being just your servant."

"It's beneath you," Arthur told him sharply, but then he had to back pedal because Merlin didn't know what Arthur now suspected about his bloodline. "Look. Anyone can be my servant. It takes training and skill to be a physician, and that's how you can best serve me right now."

Merlin seemed like he wanted to protest that, but he nodded instead and peered up at Arthur. "Alright. I understand."

Arthur gave him a hard look. What did he think he understood? Arthur's reasons were exactly as stated; they certainly didn't warrant that much gravitas. "Good." He paused though before facing the stairs again. "I'll still expect you to attend me daily, just not by feeding or dressing me."

"You can't let someone else serve your meals. I have to make sure – "

Arthur just continued speaking right over him, and clattered down the rest of the stairs as if his momentum might put an end to this wearisome subject. "And we'll get you a few page boys to run errands and do menial chores."

"Arthur, your food. People still try to poison you. You can't expect the kitchen boys to – "

"I don't want you spending all of your time grinding things and sweeping. You'll have advisory duties, and I'll need you to attend every council from now on."

"They're children!" Merlin snapped, hurrying to keep up.

Oh for gods' sakes. He wasn't going to let it go, was he. "We should dine together too, to go over royal business. It will save time. There are aspects to the position that Gaius's age excused him from, but I'll expect more from you."

That seemed to make Merlin happier and the smile he offered that time was more genuine. Probably because he was conspiring to get to Arthur's food before Arthur and make sure it was safe. It wasn't exactly true, everything Arthur listed as Merlin's new official duties, as the court physician was only a nominally advisory role, but he was used to talking at Merlin and using him as a personal secretary as well as manservant. Arthur wasn't willing to give all of that up yet, which may have been unfair to Merlin, but since he didn't seem to mind, Arthur resolved not to be bothered by it either. He would, however, be having a word with the head cook about the tasting of his food, because he wasn't about to let Merlin keep doing it, and Merlin wasn't about to let the kitchen boys do it. Arthur wondered how many other kings had to make such allowances for absurdly devoted servants.

"Good, then it's settled." Arthur picked up the pace, wondering if it were just his imagination that at least part of Merlin's reluctance to be the court physician seemed to stem from the idea of seeing less of him daily.

Arthur knuckled himself in the forehead and glanced past the edge of his chairback to where Merlin stood propped against a pillar with a pitcher cradled against his chest, staring.

Sir Meliot spoke up, evidently trying to be kind, except that as usual, it came out condescending. "Sire, the lad is a simpleton. I'm sure that I speak for everyone when I say – "

"Speak for yourself," Gwaine interjected. He projected cheer and ease, but everyone at the table already knew that Gwaine only sounded like that as a prelude to drawing a blade, normally.

" – eh." Meliot's glance flickered around the other men seated at the table, but he must have seen nothing worrisome, because he continued. "Well, that is to say… I'm sure he made a fine assistant to our former court physician, but he could hardly be expected to shoulder such a burden himself. It would be cruel, sire."

Arthur blinked a few times, slow like a lizard. Still staring at Meliot, Arthur called again, "Merlin. Have a seat." He spared a glance for Gaius's now-empty chair further down on the left, near Geoffrey, but Arthur wasn't blind to the way that Merlin had refused to go near it all through the dregs of usual council business that took up most of the morning.

He looked to the chair directly beside him instead, at his left hand, where no one had sat since Guinevere's death. She would have approved, he thought. The memory of her smile, slow and sweet like sunlight, flickered through his mind. _You will be a great king._ There was so much of her in Merlin, or perhaps the reverse. They had both thought better of him than he deserved.

Purposefully, Arthur reached out the hand that had previously been a prop for his chin, and pushed the chair back at an angle so that Merlin could slip through. He dared anyone to challenge him simply by making no reaction whatsoever to the uncertain looks passing between his councilors. Leon, at least, wore a look very similar to Arthur's, and Gwaine simply glared at the side of Meliot's head as he very obnoxiously crunched his way through a third apple, probably wishing that he was crunching the cartilage in Meliot's oversized nose instead.

Lord Howel cleared his throat and then seemed to second guess the wisdom of speaking before he offered, "Sire, we are simply concerned. If the boy is a competent physician, then by all means, he should inherit the position, but the council… Sire, you require wise and learned advice. Not…not the words of a peasant. Sire."

Arthur swiveled around to get another look at Merlin impersonating a statue. He wasn't exactly bolstering his own cause. "Merlin. Put that down and sit."

Merlin startled, looked at his pitcher of wine, and then wandered in a circle in search of a table to set it upon. A few seats down, Leon could be heard snickering a bit, but it wasn't mean. It also wasn't helping.

Frustrated now, and on the edge of being embarrassed, Arthur stood up and snapped, "Drop the act. You're not actually an idiot." He strode over, grabbed the pitcher from Merlin, and set it on the floor with a pointed _thunk_. "See?" He held his hands out as if showcasing the feat of placing a pitcher on the floor. "All better. Now come on." He hooked Merlin by an arm and walked him over to the table. In hindsight, he probably should have made his intentions clear to the council before springing Merlin on them like this. Or them on him, for that matter. Unfortunately, it was only going to get worse before it was over. "My Lords, may I present Merlin, freeman of Essetir and Camelot." He pressed on Merlin's shoulder, which wasn't all that necessary as Merlin dropped like a stone into his seat before Arthur could do much beyond touch him. "I hereby appoint him to the vacant position of court physician, as he completed his apprenticeship to our former court physician over four years ago and is, in his own right, a qualified physician of the highest order. Further – " And here, he addressed his remarks toward Meliot. "He will be my personal advisor on all matters that I deem appropriate. If that is a problem for anyone, you are invited to leave."

"Sire, surely you've had your fun."

Arthur leaned his hands on the table and faced Aymer. "What part of this seems like a jest, my Lord Aymer? The council's concerns have been addressed, have they not? I would also point out that your queen was born a peasant. You could hardly object on the merits of Merlin's station alone without also insulting her."

In his periphery, Arthur saw Merlin grip at the edge of the table with both hands and squeeze until his knuckles turned white. "Sire."

Arthur straightened and dropped his hand to Merlin's shoulder, except that he flinched and ruined the effect. "I am waiting, Lord Aymer."

Merlin's shoulder tensed up into a knot beneath Arthur's hand.

"Sire." Aymer bowed his upper body, but it was not a concession. "With respect, our late queen was of uncommon grace. She cannot be compared to your…manservant."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, and only realized that he was clenching his hands when Merlin looked up at him, his shoulder still caught in the vice of Arthur's now tightening fingers. He forced himself to relax. "He is entirely comparable in that regard."

It was Meliot who dared respond to that, his distaste a thin veneer overtop courtly manners sharp and proper as knives. "Because he also shares your bed?"

Merlin very deliberately leaned away.

Arthur's hand followed him, enlivened by the flush of temper he felt heating his face. "I beg your pardon, Sir Meliot."

"Even the boy knows the impropriety of this," Meliot pressed, gesturing to where Merlin appeared to be trying to disappear into his seat. "A king cannot reward his every _consort_ with a court position."

It was the inflection that did it, and Arthur felt his muscles easing as if in readiness for a sword battle. "Are you calling my late wife a whore?"

Sir Meliot blinked once and regrouped. "Of course not, sire. Your love for each other was obvious, and she was well suited to be your wife."

"Ah." He gave the man a predatory blink. "Then it is only Merlin you're calling a whore."

Merlin stirred unexpectedly at that. "Sire, please. It's not worth it. I know my place."

Arthur ignored him with a firm tap to the shoulder and moved away from his chair, to better stare down Sir Meliot. "Not that it is any of your concern who shares my bed or why, but rest assured, _sir_ , that my _court physician_ conducts himself with more propriety than you do, apparently. Or do you simply believe me the kind of king who would take advantage of a servant for his own personal pleasure?"

Meliot's gaze darted back and forth between Arthur and various other members of the council. "Of course not, sire. I would never believe you to be dishonorable like that."

"Oh, like that." Arthur grinned and sauntered further around the table. "So there are other ways in which I am dishonorable, just not that one."

"Sire – "

"You forget yourself, Sir Meliot."

"Excuse me, my lords."

Arthur looked up at Merlin, surprised to see him standing, though he kept his eyes respectfully on the floor. Or perhaps it was just anger, or mortification. "Merlin, I will handle this."

"By throwing down a gauntlet?" Merlin demanded. "I am not your maiden to defend, sire. With all due respect, I hardly need be present while you all argue about my honor, or lack thereof, without bothering to address me at all. My time would be better spent assisting the interim physician with his duties. If it pleases the council." Without waiting for leave, Merlin bowed stiffly, spun around the chair Arthur had put him in, and stalked toward the servant's entrance. Before he made it, though, he backstepped and turned toward them again, but as before, he kept his eyes down. "And in case anyone wondered, I am not the king's new bedwarmer, and I do not whore myself out for anything, least of all a bloody royal appointment that I never asked for." And then he was gone, and the heavy oak side door banged hard shut behind him.

Arthur blinked, and then Aymer remarked, "How dare he disrespect his king in such a manner?"

"I am not the one he disrespected, Lord Aymer." Arthur backed down from Meliot with a frosty glare and ambled back to his chair. He caught a whiff of something like lightning in the air and realized why Merlin had kept his eyes so carefully downcast. "And I would caution you, before you decide to issue some sort of challenge against your supposedly stained honor, that Merlin answers to me. And only to me."

Lord Howell cleared his throat. "Sire, if I may. We all know that the boy holds a place of honor for his service to you. Some of us were present when he pulled you out of the way of the Collin witch's dagger, and was awarded the position as your manservant. He is, of course, completely devoted to your majesty and would follow you into any danger you faced. But we cannot conflate this with a suitability to judge matters of court. He is a simple lad, sire. It is commendable that he has learned the physician's trade, but he is not fit for more. To expect him to take the place of a royal advisor is unfair to him. He will only be shamed when he fails."

"You have such a low opinion of the man to whom I owe my life?"

"No, of course not." Lord Howell shifted and glanced around in an effort to find support. A few people looked back, but there was no outpouring of camaraderie for him. "His actions were, of course, laudible. But it should not be mistaken for competence."

Gwaine finally stirred at that. "Neither should nobility." He continued to absently pick his teeth with a splintered bit of wood, which better not have come from the underside of the table. He was like a damn toddler.

Arthur flared his nostrils but sat in an effort to diffuse the situation, though it wasn't what he wanted to do. It was simply the stronger diplomatic position to take just then. "This is not up for debate, gentlemen. It is already decided, and you will abide by it." Arthur caught Sir Geoffrey's eye, who appeared uncomfortable at the conversation raging around him. "Sir Geoffrey, you have drawn up the necessary papers?"

"Yes, sire." Geoffrey leaned back to pass a scroll to a lad standing behind him. "The appointment and compensation is laid out in detail."

The boy held out the scroll timidly and Arthur smiled at him, little thing that he was. "If there is nothing else, gentlemen?" Arthur rose without waiting for anyone to bring up a new subject, or to rehash the old one, and the counsel rose as well in his wake with a chorus of scraping chairs, creaking limbs and visible ire. Leon followed him silently to the servant's door, and after a moment spent staring Lords Aymer and Howell, and Sir Meliot out of the room for posterity, so did Gwaine.

Once out in the back corridor, Arthur flung his gauntlet at a wall and then kicked it for good measure. It went skittering off down the corridor and bumped into a cabinet before stopping.

And of course, Leon just had to point out, "Merlin's going to have to fix that."

Arthur paused and curled his fingers into his palms, the fine leather of his gloves creaking at the strain. With a great deal of false cheer, Arthur remarked, "I hate them. The whole fat lot of them. They're utterly useless."

Gwaine wandered over, thumbs hooked in his sword belt, eyes unfocused and meandering somewhere down toward the far end of the corridor. "You lack confidence, and they know it."

Arthur and Leon both blinked over at him, startled.

Still musing at a point in the distance, Gwaine explained, "You're not the king when you're in there. You aren't ruling. You're asking them to agree with you, and they never will."

A year ago, Gwaine's words would have roused Arthur to a fine temper, but now, he merely considered this habitual drunken flirt that most took for a handsome fool who happened to be good at swordplay. "What do you mean? I _am_ the king."

"But you don't act like it." Gwaine swayed himself back from wherever he'd gone and gave both of them an unconvincing grin. How had Arthur never seen the melancholy in it before? "A king is a leader. He asks for advice from his counselors, not complicity or compromise. He doesn't rule _with_ them; he _rules_ them. If you acted like this on the battlefield, no one would follow you. It's the same in there – it's just another battlefield, with less blood and better clothes."

Arthur rotated to face him properly. "I'm listening."

Gwaine blinked, perhaps surprised by that, and then schooled himself again. "When we face an army, you ask for reports. You ask for intelligence. You ask about past battles with similar features. You hear what everyone has to say, and then you decide for yourself what we're doing. You don't ask us to accept the plan, you _tell us_ what we're doing, and the only part that we have to decide for ourselves is how to execute our part of it. What you're doing in there is a negotiation, no matter how you phrase things. And the only place for that is after the battle is won."

Leon stared at Gwaine as if he'd never seen him before, much the same as Arthur suspected he was doing. Then Leon guffawed and smacked him on the shoulder. "It's almost like you know what you're talking about."

Gwaine shared in the ribbing with a grin and flipped his hair out of his eyes. "Being Lot's son is good for something." He looked down and ignored Leon's attempt not to suddenly drop his jaw at that revelation. He sketched a mockery of a courtly bow, but there wasn't much actual mockery in it. "You aren't weak, princess. Stop acting like it."

There wasn't much that Arthur could think to say to that, so he merely nodded, and watched Gwaine shamble off out of sight with his half-eaten apple and his wood splinter.

~TBC~


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

 _Arthur took a sudden, disbelieving breath as the piercing, formless light resolved around the shape of a man. "Father."_

 _"Arthur." Uther's face appeared pale, backlit like a shadow, and soft. There was kindness there in the lines around his mouth, and the smoothness of his eyes, which Arthur could only remember as creases of concern or worse while he'd lived._

 _It was relief that made Arthur's breath come faster, shaking his head as he confessed, "I thought I'd never see you again." He watched a smile hint its way into the line of Uther's mouth. "There isn't a day that passes when I don't think of you."_

 _"And I you."_

 _It felt overwhelming. Arthur could barely breathe through the emotion clogging his chest, the memory of holding his father close with blood on his hands, trying desperately to think through the haze of alcohol and some heavier drug, how to get help, how to stop this, make it a nightmare and nothing more. The horrible empty feeling of sitting beside a corpse and knowing that he put it there not because he failed or because his ambitions got the better of him, but because he had loved and made the wrong choice. "There are times when I feel so alone, I wish more than anything that you were by my side."_

 _"If I were at your side, I fear you would not like all that I have to say." It was an apology and a kindness, but a harsh one._

 _It hurt. All Arthur wanted was his father's pride – his approval. To know that he was doing a good job. Arthur furrowed his brow, and that old familiar shame invaded his chest – the feeling that he was a disappointment, and not worth the sacrifice of life that made his birth possible. But he wanted to be worth the loss that bore him. He wanted to make his father proud – make him shed the regret he must have carried for wanting Arthur at all. And he needed guidance, because he didn't think he was doing well as king. He wasn't thriving, and he feared that his kingdom wouldn't either. "What do you mean?"_

 _"Many of the decisions you've made since you've become king go against all that I taught you."_

 _Arthur looked down. It would have been easier to bear if it had been said in anger or disappointment. But Uther's voice, his face, displayed only love and understanding. "I have done what I believe to be right."_

 _"You have ignored our tradition," Uther replied, and as he came closer, some of the familiar hardness crossed his countenance. "Our ancient lores. You have allowed common men to become knights."_

 _This was an old disagreement, and something that Arthur at least knew how to argue about with his father. And defending his men was easy; it hardly needed thought to tell the truth of that. "And they are some of the finest knights that Camelot's ever known."_

 _Uther's face darkened into something more like himself when living._

 _"Arthur injected more surety into his voice when he insisted, "They would gladly give their lives for the kingdom."_

 _"They question your decisions. They make you look weak."_

 _Arthur turned as his father stepped around behind him, feeling a bit as if he were being outflanked on a field of battle. "Listening to others is a sign of strength, not…weakness." Wasn't it? Hadn't Uther taught him to listen to the council of his betters?_

 _The sneer that Arthur remembered so well materialized on Uther's face like a murk of mud and silt surfacing in a billow in shallow water, stirred by careless footsteps. "How do you expect anyone to fear a king who does not know his own mind?"_

 _Arthur swallowed because that hit too close to home. He doubted himself, and he knew it, and he had no idea what he wanted beyond each individual moment – what he wanted from his life or for his own legacy, or if he had any wants or goals at all. He stumbled over his words when he replied, "I don't want my people to respect me because they fear me."_

 _"Then they will not respect you at all."_

* * *

Arthur left Leon at the armory and continued on toward the physician's chambers. He wanted to make sure that Merlin understood that no consensus of the court was needed, and that he was now the Court Physician. More though, Arthur needed to apologize because none of that had gone well, and he should have had better control of both his counselors and his temper. He resisted the impulse to squeeze the scroll in his hand detailing the appointment, and glanced down at his royal seal inscribed in an uneven circle of red wax. The council would never have disrespected his father like that. But they had feared his father. Arthur didn't think himself capable of ruling that way. He didn't like being thought a tyrant. And Merlin wouldn't ever smile at him again if he were. But Gwaine was right; Arthur's authority with the counsel was lacking, king or no, and that had to change.

Arthur shook himself and paused in the corridor to watch the door at the end. He could recall seeing it open all of the time, welcoming visitors, when he had been a small child, before Morgana came to live with them. His nurses could never keep reliable track of him back then, and he seemed to end up here more often than not, the path a well-tread memory in his mind. Usually, the sun would be shining though the high narrow windows of the staircase, spilling out through the open infirmary door like a beacon. Gaius had been young then, his hair darker, like autumn leaves, and his face smooth. Uther would be in there too as often as not. Arthur wondered how such a friendship had grown, if Uther's close kindness to his personal physician formed in direct proportion to the fear of someone assassinating him in the same manner as his brother Aurelius, through poison in a medicine bottle. Or if once, they had been alike, and perhaps Uther had been as Arthur was: partly blind to rank when considering the merits of a good man. That door had been closed more than open now for decades. Gaius's comfort with his position at court must have waned. He had spent the best part of his adult life alone in there, hiding. Perhaps it was he who passed the inclination to Merlin. Or perhaps it was Arthur's conduct that had caused that.

Merlin might not even be in there. Arthur assumed, of course, but Merlin had been hard to pin down lately, never lurking exactly where Arthur expected. A gentle clatter rang forth, however, so he took a deep breath and readied himself for an apology and a bit of a humbling. He had done his servant a disservice by allowing doubt to be cast on his honor and his competence, and for focusing on his own indignation rather than on putting those doubts to rest. They had more to talk about besides, because Arthur still had every intention of giving Merlin back the noble status that had been stripped from Balinor, but he saw now why Geoffrey had been so adamant in advising caution. The court was not stable, and that was Arthur's fault. He needed to be a better leader if he wanted to fix it, but he would need help for that.

The door pushed open easily with a creak of wooden hinges, and Arthur squinted at the bright light pouring through the windows to the left. His entrance stirred a sharp draft and in the swirl of dust kicked up off of the floor, for just a moment, Arthur saw Guinevere standing in the light, in her yellow maid's dress. She had a hand raised as if reaching to grasp Merlin's shoulder in gentle concern, like the friend she had once been. Arthur tripped on the threshold and by the time he caught himself, she was gone, the vision little more than a remnant of seeing her here years ago, cast into the settling dust like a knife to his chest. He breathed heavily for a moment, his heart racing, fingers white where they gripped the doorjamb. Merlin seemed oblivious to Arthur even being there. He stood facing the shelves of dried herbs, chin tipped up with the fingers of one hand absently tapping at his chest.

Arthur stood upright on wobbly legs and forced himself to find some measure of composure again. "Merlin?" He nearly cringed at how thready and pitched it came out.

Merlin swayed as he came back to himself and tipped his head around to look at Arthur, his eyes like mirrored seas reflecting the shine of an overcast sky, unnatural.

Quickly but carefully, Arthur set the sealed scroll onto a worktop and crossed the room to get a better look at him. Merlin turned vaguely to face him and smiled softly at Arthur's chest. Spidery fingers reached out to tap at Arthur's tunic laces and the royal pendant before Merlin hummed a bit and flickered his unfocused gaze back to where the bottles of powdered herbs twinkled in the sunlight, watery blue irises drowning his pupils. His fingers hooked into Arthur's collar and hung there.

"Come sit down," Arthur told him, pulling at his arm. He remained calm through some supernatural aegis because in his mind and the sink of his stomach, he was terrified to see this again. "Come on." He plucked Merlin's hand off and drew him toward the worktable by it. Merlin went without protest, loose as if he'd been at the ale, a large fluttery moth on a string. "Sit," Arthur encouraged, his own voice hoarse and gentle. He pushed several bowls and supplies away from the edge of the table – out of Merlin's reach – and then straddled the bench behind him. "Sit there. Just relax. Everything will be fine."

Merlin's head weaved as he looked up at some point of nothing near the ceiling, gentle like waves made by the wind across the top of a wheat field. Arthur tugged him back into his body, one arm tucked up under Merlin's with a few fingers still caught in his grasp. Some hint of awareness must have remained for a moment because Merlin frowned and wobbled his gaze down to where his fingers were tangled up with Arthur's, but then he took a sudden, deep breath that expanded his torso. His free hand dropped to Arthur's leg, tucked tight against his hip, and he tensed up with several sharp gulps of air as if he were hyperventilating, or about to be sick. Arthur moved with him briefly and then grimaced as Merlin's muscles contracted and pulled in, fingers gouging hard into the meaty part of Arthur's palm where their hands rested over Merlin's chest, his other hand twisting and pulling at Arthur's trouser leg, breath going choppy like freezing to death in the snow.

"It's alright." Arthur wasn't sure who he said it for more, since he didn't think Merlin was exactly aware right now. The back of Merlin's head dug into Arthur's shoulder even as the rest of his upper body curled forward over their joined hands and juddered like the moment after hypothermia breaks, and Arthur fought the urge to restrict his movements and cause more harm by it. "Alright. I've got you. It's alright." Arthur kept his eyes unfocused and fixed forward, stoic and resolute that he shouldn't look if he didn't have to. He was aware of the painfully hard clench of Merlin's jaw where the line of it pressed against Arthur's cheek, and of the uneven shaking of limbs like a severe palsy as Merlin's body curled into itself in some places and flexed away in others. The blood rushing though Arthur's head throbbed like being underwater – like the fight or flight impulse of facing a coming battle, surreal, as if he were standing two steps to one side of himself, marooned on the wrong side of his own skin. He could smell something unnatural in the air, dragons and water and dusty sunshine that hurt his eyes, and the flowers tucked into his wife's hair, and blood running across rocks where his sister lay dead. It reeked like screaming and desperation, and tasted like fear as he clutched and dragged back the only thing still living in that place with him. Merlin twisted up to one side, curled into Arthur's chest, his legs drawing up against the bench legs where one foot began to tap out uneven staccatos against the wood. An elongated grunt sheered from Merlin's throat like a rockfall, or a dragon's cry, or just simple agony held at bay.

The moment shattered and dragged Arthur back to the present in a rush of sound as the door swung inward at the other end of the room. Arthur found himself blinking hard as Gwaine's still form swam into view, frozen momentarily on the threshold in shock tinged with rust and fury. When Gwaine started to lunge forward, Leon appeared to grab him and haul him back. Arthur breathed too fast, disoriented and unable to understand the words behind the harsh arguing that ensued. He held Merlin's painfully convulsing form, a thick curl of pointed limbs and stacked ribs held tight to itself in Arthur's arms, the cord of tendon in his neck set out in sharp relief too close to Arthur's face for him to pretend he didn't see. The only clear sound in the room was that of the broken bursts of air forcing its way through Merlin's flared nostrils, the insistent broken tap-tap-tap of one foot, and the click of choked-off noises caught fast in Merlin's throat.

Arthur looked up at a swirl of movement in his periphery to find Gwaine standing next to them, calm now, his face pained. He started to reach out and then all but flung himself away, his back to Arthur and his discarded hand clenched at his side. "It's alright," Arthur told him. His own voice sounded stupid in his ears. "It will pass in a moment."

Gwaine glanced over his shoulder, incredulous, eyes skimming over Merlin and Arthur both as if he didn't want to look, but couldn't help the morbid urge to glance. Then he shook his head and moved farther away. Arthur knew how he felt; he didn't know how he was handling it either. Merlin seemed to be breathing more easily now at least, if still heavy in hard flaps like a thick woven standard whipped about by wind gusts on the battlement. A rapid heartbeat hammered against the side of his hand, still pressed to Merlin's chest, and Arthur's body relaxed in increments, timed to the slow stilling and unfurling of Merlin's until they were breathing in synch, and Merlin seemed to be doing little more than twitching now and then. Arthur listened to something that sounded like hiccups – sharp pips of sound tagged at the end of each inhale as Merlin's limbs gave tiny leftover jerks against Arthur's, and then Merlin shuddered once more and slumped in his arms, panting as if he'd run for miles. His head lolled back on Arthur's shoulder and his fingers nearly slipped from Arthur's grasp. His chest kept spasming in widening intervals accompanied by a few latent tics of his head against Arthur's shoulder, bleeding off the overexertion of muscles not accustomed to working so hard.

Arthur took several breaths to calm himself and soothe the burning in his lungs, then swallowed the last one. It took a moment for him to realize that the seasick feeling came from his own subtle rocking, back and forth, back and forth with Merlin draped limp over his chest and arms. He stopped and tried to get a look at Merlin's face. Slits of dull blue shone from behind half-lowered lids, uncomfortably reminiscent of the way someone's face looked freshly dead, slack in that instant when the breath leaves them but the warmth of the skin has not. Arthur forced back the kick in his chest at that thought and made himself notice the whistling of air in Merlin's throat - the movement of life in his body. He wasn't unconscious, but he wasn't truly awake either.

"It never left you, did it."

Arthur's breath hitched as he looked up.

"Whatever happened out there." Gwaine nodded in no particular direction, just _out_ , but there was no mistaking that he meant the day Guinevere died. Arthur had come back different. Everyone had noticed.

"It was bad," Arthur agreed. His voice didn't sound like his own.

"Is that where this started?"

"Probably," Arthur whispered.

Gwaine merely nodded and sighed. "Sorry I shouted."

Arthur ticked his head in a negative gesture, because he hadn't really noticed.

"It looked like you were hurting him." Gwaine wandered around past the table and poked at the open food cupboard. "Leon's gone for help. Not sure I trust the mole man, though."

"Hubert." Arthur considered that for a moment. "I think. I can never remember his name."

Gwaine grunted in agreement and fished out a little pot of dried leaves. He sniffed them, considered, and then took them over to the fire.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Making tea." Gwaine poked an iron rod at the fire until it flared back up, then swung a kettle over it.

"Tea." Arthur frowned doubtfully.

"Only useful thing my mother ever taught me. Well." He grinned. "That and how to cheat your way through life."

Arthur gave him a stern look, but Merlin stirred before he could retort. "Easy." He angled both of them forward so that Merlin could sit up a bit and cast a bleary stare at the mess on the worktable. He nearly pitched forward a moment later, so Arthur kept an arm around him and let him brace his hands on Arthur's knees.

By the time Gwaine stepped into view with a few cups balanced carefully in his hands, Merlin had his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, possibly fighting nausea or a bit of room spinning. His muscles were better than jelly, at least, and Arthur no longer needed to prop him up. He continued to weave a bit where he sat, though, gently listing to the right as if keeping his balance in a fishing boat. "Hey, Merls." Gwaine nudged him as if afraid he might knock him straight over again. "Drink up. It's, um…leaf tea."

Merlin wobbled his head to look at the proffered cup and stared at it until Gwaine pushed it under his nose, at which point something automatic took over. Merlin wrapped his hands around the warmth of it, but he didn't drink it. His nose nearly touched the rim of the cup as he frowned at it.

Arthur wrinkled his face up when Gwaine went to hand him one too. "Is it safe? You don't even know what it is."

"It's tea," Gwaine replied as if Arthur were the slow one. "It was in the food cupboard. Why wouldn't it be safe?"

Arthur could think of a dozen reasons to suspect it, actually, but he accepted the cup anyway and took a sip quickly to make sure it wasn't going to kill them all. Only after he swallowed did it occur to him what he was doing, and he considered that he should be more charitable in future to Merlin's insistence on being Arthur's food tester. From this side of the thing, it made perfect sense to Arthur why Merlin would have no qualms or hesitation about doing it for him. "Chamomile," Arthur announced, and then scrubbed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I hate chamomile."

Gwaine gave him a wide grin. "Good thing I didn't really make it for you, then." He poked Merlin's arm and his smile nearly flickered out when Merlin looked at him with only the slightest sense of recognition. "Drink that," Gwaine told him, more gentle about it than Arthur had ever heard him.

Merlin finally seemed to realize that he had a drink in his hands and took an uncoordinated sip. It consisted more of him lowering his face to the cup than of lifting the cup to his mouth.

Gwaine snagged an apple from amongst the detritus of the bench and bumped it into the back of Merlin's hand until Merlin dropped his fingers around it, but he didn't do anything other than hold it. Gwaine frowned. "How long does this last?"

Arthur shrugged and rubbed his hand vigourously between Merlin's shoulder blades before shifting to tuck his hair away from his face and then fix his skewed neckerchief. "A candlemark or so."

Gwaine watched Arthur fuss with the collar of Merlin's tunic next, and then remarked, apropos of nothing, "Why don't you just tell him that you love him?"

For a moment, Arthur didn't move, and then he shoved to his feet without much thought for where he was going. "I can't do that."

"Why?"

When Arthur looked back, hands restless on his hips, it was to see Gwaine using his boot knife to cut the apple into slices that he lined up near Merlin's hand. Arthur had to look away again, his mind swimming. A vision struck him, like a horrible memory, of ash kicking up like fog in the orange light of the setting sun, and apple slices sweet on his tongue. He'd done a bad thing, but his father was smiling and proud and it felt like he loved Arthur, so it must have been good. Eventually, Arthur heard crunching and directed himself to the table again, where Merlin was eating the apple slices carefully, seeming more present as he watched Gwaine clean his knife. "You're very protective of him."

Gwaine didn't bother looking up from what he was doing, but the knife must have been clean by now. "Took you long enough to notice."

"No, it didn't." Arthur wandered closer and Merlin looked up at him, eyes mostly focused. His smile went to Merlin, but the words were for Gwaine. "You've always been. Why?"

"I've told you before," Gwaine replied. He acted like it wasn't important, or that he was only giving the conversation the bare minimum of his attention, but Arthur had seen him fight. He knew the ruse for what it was. "He never expects any praise. He does things just for the good of doing them, as if there isn't any limit to how much of himself he can give." He finally gave up on the knife and set it down, watching Merlin watch Arthur without recognition. "There is, though; everyone has limits. Somebody has to look out for his, because he won't."

"Yes, but why you?"

"He's my friend." Gwaine met Merlin's gaze when he looked over at the sound of his voice, and he grinned, soft and private. "I don't have many."

"Merlin has lots of friends," Arthur countered, unhappy with the clench of jealousy in his chest as Merlin returned the smile without thought, but too aware of it to give in to the pettiness.

Gwaine shook his head, off-hand like it meant nothing to him that Arthur even existed. "No, he doesn't. And too many of the ones that were are dead now."

Arthur took that in for a moment. "Why do you call him a friend?"

At first, it seemed that Gwaine wouldn't answer, but with Merlin still vague on his surroundings and focused again on tea and apple wedges, he finally said, "Because even when I was just some drunk in a tavern, he looked at me like I mattered." Gwaine appeared uncomfortable with the conversation, but he wasn't the sort to back down just because something bothered him. "And that never changed. No matter what he's found out about me, or what I've done, or who I tell him I am, he still looks at me the same." More to himself, or perhaps to Merlin, Gwaine added, "Like I mean something."

There was pride in that, and Arthur tried to imagine what would have made a king's son, even Lot's, ever believe that he didn't. Even at Uther's worst criticisms, Arthur had known his own worth.

"You can't expect him to keep living like this."

Arthur only realized he had turned to stare blankly at a window when he had to look back at Gwaine's words.

"In a kingdom where magic is banned." Gwaine looked at Arthur, his face stern with disapproval, and maybe with some sympathy for a king who still lived in another's shadow. "It will kill him, and I don't mean by your fires."

Arthur didn't have a chance to respond to that because Merlin took the opportunity to twist on the bench and grip Gwaine's shoulder. He made an admonishing noise and Gwaine just shook his head. Merlin looked over at Arthur instead, his eyes bleary, but his face somewhat back to normal, back in the room with them.

Arthur walked back over and dropped onto the bench opposite Merlin at the table. "How are you feeling?"

Merlin looked down for a moment and visibly struggled to find the right word before slurring out, "Sore."

Arthur nodded. "The physician is coming. I mean, I'm sure you're fine, but Leon… Never mind." He waved away everything he was saying because Merlin was looking at him in confusion. "He'll look you over just to be sure."

"Gaius?" Merlin brightened and looked behind himself, then down at where Arthur had found the body. "No," Merlin answered himself.

"No," Arthur breathed in apology. He watched Merlin scrub at his chest and then the tabletop for a moment, obviously trying to orient himself better. "We were at council this morning," Arthur offered.

Merlin nodded, then looked down at himself. "Not my clothes?"

"No. I mean yes, they are now. But…no." Arthur was pretty sure he wasn't helping anything. "Who is that?" he asked, pointing at Gwaine.

Merlin glared at him for a bleary heartbeat, looked at Gwaine, and then stalled on the answer.

Gwaine looked gutted for a bare second, but recovered before Merlin noticed. "It's fine," Gwaine chirped. "Look, drink that." He mussed up Merlin's hair to make him huff and smile like a five year old, and then shot Arthur a frightened look.

Arthur shook his head to dismiss the concern. "Merlin, what kingdom are we in?"

"Albion."

"Yes, but which part?"

Merlin frowned, then finally said, "Your part. That's Gwaine." He hooked his thumb at said knight and then grunted in protest when he found himself accosted with some kind squeezy bear hug. "Stop, m'fine." He smacked Gwaine away and then gripped the table's edge to keep his balance where he sat.

Arthur laughed at the indignant way that Gwaine straightened himself back out, like a great big agitated bird, then addressed Merlin again. "Do you remember what happened this morning?"

"Elise." Merlin turned the cup of half-drunk tea in a circle. "Sewing." He blinked several times in rapid succession and stared off into nothing for a moment. "Gwaine ate apples at council." Merlin's gaze returned to Arthur. "Did you challenge someone?" Then something else occurred to him and he paled. "Did I yell at the council?"

Gwaine snorted. "Nothing they didn't deserve."

"Oh my god." Merlin buried his face against the table. "I'm for the stocks, aren't I."

Arthur waved that off. "Since I put you on the council, you can address it whenever you like."

Merlin rolled his forehead against the table and then snapped his head up. "You what?"

"Put you on the council," Arthur repeated slowly, as if speaking to a simpleton. He regretted that immediately, because it was too close just now, but he was used to addressing Merlin like that whenever he needed to repeat something.

A measure of syrupy slur came out in Merlin's words, in spite of the deliberate way he pronounced them, when he asked, "Why did you do that?" He sounded genuinely curious, at least, rather than indignant about it the way he had been that morning when Arthur told him of his new appointment.

Arthur swallowed. "I named you Court Physician. We talked about it this morning?"

Merlin tilted his head and then shook it like a sailor draining water from his ear. Then he looked at the diminished pile of apple slices in front of him, and the barely-touched tea. With evident care not to knock anything over, he pulled his hands back and let them drop into his lap, his eyes fixed on the table's edge. "I can't."

"Merlin – "

"Look at me," Merlin exhorted, but there was shame in the curve of his neck and the way he hid his face. "I couldn't even remember his name a moment ago." He flapped some fingers against Gwaine's arm as if he'd misjudged the distance between them. "And you're going to trust me with patients?"

"It'll pass," Arthur argued. He let out a huff and tried to laugh Merlin's concern off as nerves. "You lived like this a year with no one the wiser. It doesn't stop you doing your chores, or writing my speeches – "

"Because I can stop when I have to. And if I mess up or get confused, no one is going to die because I washed laundry in the wrong bucket, or left it in a corner somewhere and forgot. And you expect me to be late everywhere, or to disappear for a day, and it doesn't matter. What if there's an emergency? Or I accidentally mix a potion wrong?" Merlin interrupted. "Or give you the wrong bottle? What if I poison you because I can't – " He visibly searched for a word that would adequately describe what happens when a fit is coming on, or after. He gave up quickly though, perhaps because he didn't want to name it. "Arthur, it's not safe for me to do this."

Arthur refused that outright, head shaking to negate it out of hand. "There have got to be treatments for this. Something to make them stop, or come less. Gaius said he had herbs."

"I don't know what they are, or how to prepare them – Gaius didn't get a chance to tell me. I don't even know where he put them. And that's just more proof - if I were really ready to be the Court Physician, I'd already know how to treat this."

"Gaius consulted his books all of the time - he didn't just store everything in his head. And after a lifetime of studying medicine, even he couldn't make you better on a whim." Arthur pushed away from the table again and paced to the ledge below the window that overlooked the courtyard. He couldn't see anything on the ground from where he stood, but he could see up to where a few lone puffy clouds floated in a bright sky. "We'll figure it out."

"I don't know when they're coming," Merlin pressed. "What if someone is bleeding out and I just…"

Arthur listened to him trail off and pictured the gesture he would have made, like a toppling motion, or like presenting a gloriously dead body on the table before him. He didn't respond, but he did wonder why he was so adamant about this, that Merlin should be the Court Physician – that he should have this title. It felt as if he, Arthur, were the one being cheated. He didn't like the feeling that it was selfish of him to want this when Merlin kept indicating that maybe he didn't, or shouldn't. And his points were valid, and that just…rankled.

Thankfully, Leon appeared again with a soft knock on the door, and Arthur only had to say, "We'll discuss this later," before retreating with Gwaine to stand near the door where Leon hovered.

Uninvited, Gwaine murmured, "He may be right."

Arthur merely treated him to baleful look and Gwaine took the hint to back off. He spied the sealed royal appointment sitting innocuously on the little table near Merlin's elbow, unopened and unnoticed. It made him angry only because he felt helpless over it. He faced Leon instead. "Where's the physician?"

"Overseeing a birth," Leon replied. "I told him we knew how to manage it, but he'll come if you order it. I told him it wasn't necessary to leave the woman but that you'll want him later, when he's free."

It wasn't ideal, but Arthur could hardly insist on the man's presence when Merlin seemed to be coming out of it alright, and some poor woman travailing was far more important. "Alright."

"He gave me instructions on a sleeping draught, if we need to keep him calm." Leon pulled out a folded piece of parchment from his sleeve, under the wrist guard. "Said it's already prepared, he saw it on the shelves this morning." Leon frowned down at the parchment as if he couldn't read the writing. "Purple liquid, labeled with a….this thing." He pointed at some kind of runic scribble.

Arthur squinted in an effort to also make it out; it looked familiar. He'd seen it often enough in Morgana's chambers. Arthur looked back past his shoulder to find Merlin fingering the edges of the wax seal on the royal appointment. He seemed…wistful. He looked like he wanted it, but knew he couldn't take it – as if it wasn't his. The sun winked in through the window, a rolling susurration of light intermittently hidden by clouds, and Arthur watched the shine paint a haze in the dust of the room, and around the puffs of disordered hair on Merlin's head, a fuzzy illumination that cast his face into shadow. Eventually, Arthur confessed out loud, "Guinevere was in here."

Both Leon and Gwaine stopped making silent communications with each other in favor of staring at him.

"I saw her standing in the light." Arthur felt his face go soft around the edges as he watched Merlin pick at the ribbon on the scroll and then drag the parchment over in front of himself. "She was wearing her yellow dress."

Leon threw a quick look at Gwaine, and then said, "Sire, are you…"

"I'm not mad," Arthur murmured. He kept his eyes trained on Merlin breaking the seal quietly and then fingering the parchment as if unsure whether he should open it the rest of the way or not. "I know she wasn't there. It was a trick of the light."

Finally, Merlin bit his lip and unrolled a bit of the parchment. His finger traced a few of the letters, but he was shaking his head gently back and forth, and seemed upset by it.

Arthur looked down for a moment, and then addressed Leon again. "Is he right?"

The change in subject threw Leon off for a moment. "Sire?"

"Is this too much to put on him," Arthur clarified lowly, "in his current condition?"

Leon blinked a few times. "No, sire." He said it as if he couldn't even understand why Arthur would ask such a thing. "And…with respect, he has earned the position. You cannot take it away from him now."

All of them fell silent when Merlin struggled to his feet and retreated across the room, unsteady but determined, leaving the scroll behind on the table. Arthur looked at it, at how Merlin had apparently tried to crumple part of it, and then raised his eyes again in time to catch the thump of the tower room door closing.

Gwaine sighed off to one side. "I think he heard us."

Arthur shook his head and wandered back over to the table to smooth out the royal appointment. They all went still for a moment at the sound of something breaking in the closed room above them, and then ignored it after the second deliberate crash of glass and clay. Arthur sighed once everything went silent again, started to head across the room, and then stopped, uncertain. People needed space sometimes to work through their anger, but Arthur knew that for himself, he always wanted Merlin near when things bothered him, even when he knew how unbearable he could be to his servant. Arthur didn't know if he should intrude, if it would be welcome, if Merlin's anger were similar to Arthur's or not. Another thump sounded from the tower room, a lonely little thud of frustration. Arthur looked to Gwaine for some sort of cue because as much as he hated to admit it, Gwaine understood Merlin better at times, and this was likely one of them.

Gwaine huffed and gave him a nasty look, then approached the tower room himself. "Merlin!" He knocked on the door and propped a shoulder against the wall of the little alcove. "Are you decent, mate?"

Arthur retrieved the royal appointment, then came up behind Gwaine. Leon followed after a longer moment of reflection. They exchanged a look at the sound of broken glass and other bits being swept into a pile. With a brief reconsideration of the thought that Merlin might be better left alone for now, Arthur tried the door. He was actually surprised when it opened. Through the narrow crack he made, Arthur could see the back of Merlin's head where he knelt on the other side of the narrow cot, bowed low as his shoulder blades flexed beneath the fine tunic Arthur had given him, moving in time with the sweeping motion of his hands.

Arthur shuffled in and took in the clutter that seemed to be Merlin's natural state, pushing a blanket and a few books out of the way with his boot. It hadn't taken long for the mess to migrate back across the floor after Gaius had lain here in wait. Merlin sniffed, a delicate sound, and slowed in his sweeping of glass and terra cotta shards. Arthur stepped around the bed, eyes caught on the bare back of Merlin's neck and the overlapping cuts there, old ridges of scar tissue, to find Merlin using his neckerchief to push the shards into a neat pile without cutting himself. He stopped as soon as Arthur's shadow fell on him, and worried at the cloth in his hands instead. "Did you really see her?"

It wasn't at all what Arthur expected him to say. "It was just a trick of the light." Was it cruel to dismiss it when Merlin seemed to think it significant enough to mention? "She wasn't really there."

Merlin wagged his head and looked down so that Arthur couldn't see his face. "I can hear her sometimes."

"Merlin…" Arthur warned, fighting not to glance behind him where Gwaine and Leon were no doubt trading uneasy looks.

"I know you don't want to talk about her," Merlin allowed. And that seemed to be the end of it; whatever was bothering him about that, he wouldn't share it with Arthur because the only times they brought her up anymore was when they were shouting at each other.

Arthur glanced back to find Leon and Gwaine loitering in a farce of privacy in the doorway, then took a breath and sat on the cot so that his knees threatened to brush up against the side of Merlin's ribcage. He could see bits of colored glass in the pile of darker bits of thin stone, clay and pewter on the floor near Merlin's trouser leg. "It's not that I don't want to talk about her. Or pretend she was never here."

But Merlin refused to engage in that conversation, and instead bent to start collecting the broken chips of what might have been a bowl into his neckerchief, cupped in the palm of his hand. "I'll see to your chambers this afternoon, sire. I need to run medicines to the lower town first."

Arthur blinked at the side of his head a few times. "George can see to my chambers, and Hubert can see to the medicines for another day, at least."

"I'd rather do it myself." Merlin folded the neckerchief around the little pile of sharp edges and chips, then clambered stiffly to his feet.

"You should be resting." Arthur followed suit, fighting not to crush the royal appointment in a fit of frustration with Merlin's bull-headedness. "And I've promoted you, Merlin. You don't clean my chambers anymore."

Merlin puttered about near the cupboard with the wrapped shards in one hand, apparently looking for someplace to put them. "And I'm grateful. But I think we both know it won't work."

"I don't believe that."

Both of them stopped their awkward prevaricating to look at Leon, including Gwaine.

"It's…emasculating," Leon went on, cautious and yet strangely determined. "To be sick or injured, and have no control over it. To feel shamed or weak. But it's only weak if you give into it."

Merlin sucked in his lower lip and bit down briefly. "I can't endanger patients. And I don't mind being a servant. There's no shame in that."

"But you're not a servant," Leon argued. "You're a lord. The last dragonlord. It deserves some acknowledgement."

Merlin's face creased and wrinkled in a disbelieving sort of laugh. "And you're going to tell everyone that? Make me a lord on that claim?" The expression on his face, bright with irony and no small amount of bitter humor, made it clear how ludicrous he thought that was. "It's not even legal for me to be alive here."

"Arthur will change that," Leon insisted, looking to said king for support.

But Arthur froze, his mind stuck on his father's dead face and Guinevere's dead face, and his sister's dead face, and countless others dead by magic. He wanted to agree – he did agree, and he'd told Leon as much just a few days ago, but it wouldn't come. He'd implied it to Merlin too. But just then, faced with it in the light of day in front of his sorcerer and his knights, the words stuck.

Gwaine merely stood there, unusually silent, and appeared to be recategorizing people in his head. So he had known about Merlin's magic, but none of the rest. He did glance at Arthur, though, and seemed to understand what was going on because he grimaced in some kind of unhappy sympathy.

Arthur's silence did not seem to surprise Merlin; he merely gave a noncommittal nod and turned away to shuffle things around on a table near the cot to clear a place to set down the bundle of broken pieces. As if he heard the words every time Arthur spoke them, and even believed that Arthur may have meant them, but knew better than to expect anything to come of it. And it hurt, because Arthur understood – he feared the same thing: that when it came down to it, he wouldn't be able to reverse what his father had done, or overcome the fear and hostility it had bred in his own heart. He'd gone back on that sentiment before, hadn't he? He'd allowed that he may have been wrong about magic, and then he'd reasserted his father's claims as if they were his own, repeatedly.

For his part, Leon stared for a moment, visibly made an effort to regroup after that utter failure to reassure, and then breathed out as he turned away with one hand harshly smoothing his beard down into a tuft under his chin. Arthur had never felt the sting of Leon's disappointment before; it practically smothered him now, frantic like bees under his skin. He looked back to Merlin in time for their eyes to meet, and made an impulse decision. His fingers scrabbled at the chain of the royal pendant around his neck, and then he yanked it off over his head.

Merlin gave him a strange look and backed up a step. "What are you doing?"

Arthur coiled the chain up in his palm and let the pendragon crest hang down over the back of his hand. It was only then that he noticed delicate crescent lines spread in a row across the thicker blade of his palm where Merlin had dug his fingernails in the throes of the fit. They should have stung by now like papercuts, and Arthur frowned when they didn't. "Do you remember what I told you this morning about my cousin?"

Merlin shook his head, confused, but replied, "Yes." His forehead rumpled as he looked from Arthur to the pendant and back. "Your father's nephew."

"His elder brother's son," Arthur confirmed. "The one who should have inherited, whatever anyone else claims. The one my father…" He could remember apple slices enjoyed from atop his father's shoulders, and the blood red setting sun filtered through clouds of dying smoke and billows of ash kicked up by the evening breeze. But he couldn't recall what came before – the pyre itself, the crowd, his father's typical speech. Only a few words stuck, but it was more the tinge of pride to them that stayed through the long years - the thought that whatever he had done, he had made his father proud. Arthur took a shallow breath, the air bottoming out in his throat rather than his lungs, and fluttered his gaze blankly forward. Arthur diverted his eyes to the pendant swinging gently to catch the light showing through cracks in the window shutters, and licked his lips. "Myrddin."

"What? I'm listening." Merlin shook his head again, clearly trying to indicate that he didn't follow what Arthur was getting at.

"No." Arthur drew the word out like procrastination. He found it interesting that saying the name the Cornish way versus the Breton pronunciation didn't seem to register with Merlin. "That was his name. My cousin. Myrddin. Or Merlin of Caermarthen, I suppose." He swallowed and looked up to gauge Merlin's reaction. "Your great uncle."

Behind Arthur, either Gwaine or Leon emitted some kind of shocked sputter and then fell silent. In front of him, Merlin blinked, his face blank, and then blinked again. But that was it. Eventually, his head sort of jerked and he looked over Arthur's shoulder to see what the other men were doing, but it was only a moment before he was staring at Arthur again as if whatever he'd said didn't make sense.

Arthur waited for some kind of response, but none came, so he prompted, "Merlin?"

Merlin finally shook his head and looked around as if to spot the joke at his expense.

It was Gwaine who finally managed to say something. "You're heir to the kingdom of Dyfedd."

Arthur looked back at him. "What?"

"Dyfedd," Gwaine repeated, and then looked to Leon for support. "It wasn't a secret. Aurelius had an affair with Adhan, the princess. If he had a bastard, it was hers."

Leon sort of flopped his head in agreement, obviously a bit stunned. "My father told me of it when I was little. He…said he didn't want it forgotten." Leon frowned and shook his head, his eyes falling as he reevaluated the purpose of his father's words for perhaps the first time.

That seemed to shake Merlin from his stupor. "Dyfedd doesn't exist anymore."

Leon cut in to confirm, "Your grandmother would have been the Lady Gwendydd, no?"

Merlin shook his head. "No? I don't know – my mother didn't talk about her family. I'm not… I'm _not._ "

Leon held up a hand as if calming a wild animal. "Did your mother have any siblings by blood? An elder brother, perhaps?"

"No, it was…just her." Merlin blinked several times and kept looking around as if something sensical might materialize from the air while he looked the other way. "I think. She mentioned her uncles, but not – not siblings."

Arthur raised a hand to arrest Merlin's fidgeting away toward the corner and tried to rearrange the order of things in his head, because no, he hadn't known about the claim to Dyfedd. Arthur hadn't known that his uncle had a son at all until just the day before; Sir Geofftey must have known this too and neglected to mention it. But why? "You told me that you had a picture of your father in your mind. A man dressed in Roman raiment. It's what they would have worn – my father and his brother – when they came back across the channel to reclaim the throne from Vortigern."

With unexpected viciousness, Merlin fixed on Arthur and spat, "That's not my father! My father was a dragonlord. He never wore that – I never saw him!"

"I know."

"We're not blood."

"No, we're not." Arthur shook his head and looked over at the shining cracks between the boards of the shutters. It must have been horribly cold in here in the winter. "Your bloodline is separate from ours. There are just marriage links." He frowned at his fingers again, at the shine of the pendant chain winking here and there in the light. "Myrddin was a dragonlord too." In his periphery, Merlin shifted restlessly. "And a seer of some kind. Sir Geoffrey called him the mad prophet of Caermarthen."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Don't you want to know where your family came from?"

Abruptly, Merlin shouted, "You just told me I have a memory of a father who wasn't mine!"

"Yes, and an unnaturally intense fear of being burned at the stake."

"I'm a sorcerer," Merlin snapped. "I have magic. It's not an _unnatural_ fear."

Arthur looked up to find Merlin's face flushed with something that wasn't anger, no matter how he sounded. "Perhaps. But you can also read and write in languages that you claim no one ever taught you – languages from across the south sea, from Roman lands. And older languages besides – languages that are dead now, but weren't then. And you can do complicated magic you haven't been properly trained to do." Even he couldn't quite believe what he was suggesting. "You don't find that strange?"

Gwaine appeared in Arthur's periphery. "What exactly are you saying? _He's_ not your cousin." He extended a few fingers in Merlin's direction. "Your cousin is dead."

"No, I know." Arthur waved his hand, but he was confusing the whole thing, and since he hadn't really thought it through yet, it was coming out all wrong.

"You're saying I'm somebody else," Merlin bit out. "That I'm not me, or that I've got somebody else just swimming around in here with me." He thumped his chest rather harder than Arthur thought necessary.

"No, I'm saying… I don't know what I'm saying. But you're not someone else, Merlin. You've always been you." Arthur watched him fume, impotent with an emotion that still wasn't anger. "Maybe it's to do with your magic. Maybe it's drawing on something, like a reservoir."

Merlin calmed his breathing into a rhythm that was still too fast with well-deserved agitation. "It was supposed to be him, wasn't it. Not me. He's Emrys."

 _Emrys has lost his way._

 _It is a prophecy, sire. That he is the one they call Emrys, and that he will stand beside the Once and Future King to usher in a golden age of peace and magic._

Arthur closed his eyes against the echo of the words of the Mother, and the bit of the last conversation that Arthur had with Gaius.

 _Much was ruined when Uther enacted the purge. Much was changed that should not have been. Many futures which should have been set, were destroyed._

"It was never me."

Arthur glanced up, surprised at the streaks crossing his own vision, to find Merlin looking as if he'd been unmade. Arthur reached out on instinct, to do who-knew-what, but Merlin careened off to one side to start flinging things around the room as if he meant to be tidying.

Merlin stopped abruptly and looked at the pair of old trousers in his hands before letting them slide down off his fingers with a soft plop back onto the floor. "Ambrosius." His gaze turned inward, his face drawing down at the edges.

Arthur nodded, thinking that something must have clicked, maybe some edge of a memory of hearing the name before. "Yes, Aurelius Ambrosius. Or… Aurelianus. It would have been different, depending on the language, I suppose."

"Emrys," Merlin replied, but more to himself this time. He half turned toward Arthur, his face troubled. "It's the same word. They mean the same thing."

Arthur grabbed him by a sleeve and dragged him back down onto the cot. Surprisingly, Merlin went with little resistance, folding like a puppet with its strings cut. "It doesn't have to mean anything at all, you know. It's just fancy."

Merlin hunched his shoulders and seemed to be counting his breath to slow it. Finally, he nodded.

"Good." Arthur let him go and sat too with his legs stretched out in front of him to cross at the ankle. "And for what it's worth, I prefer you to some doddery old man playing mad hermit in the woods." He pictured Dragoon briefly, with his scraggly-long beard and dirty teeth, and smiled. "Easier to look at, for one."

As if from miles away, Merlin shook his head. "Is this just a joke to you?"

Arthur sobered. "No. But there's nothing I can do about any of it, true or not. Is there? I don't really care _what_ you are, Merlin. I care that you're here." He glanced over to find Leon still looking as if he'd been slapped, and Gwaine glaring murder at him. Arthur looked down again and wished that he'd thought to start this in private, because neither of them needed an audience, not even a friendly one, for this. "You're always here, even when I don't want you with me because it's dangerous. Or because I don't want you to see what I have to do. Does it matter if it's true? If there's some part of him in you?"

"I could have never come here," Merlin said, his voice brittle. "I could have been somebody else – myself – had my own life." He paused and added, almost too soft to hear, "I could have never met you."

Arthur winced and grimaced down at the pendant again, at the way the clench of his fingers had pressed divots into the pad of his hand alongside Merlin's own fingernail marks there. "Is that what you want? To be…not this? Be somebody else?" He would allow it if Merlin asked for it. He'd see to it like payment of the debt that it was for the blood his father spilled – for ruining the Myrddin who was maybe, just maybe, supposed to be here, and foisting that burden on the boy Merlin instead. And it would kill the last better part of Arthur, but he'd do it. He'd send Merlin away to have whatever life he wanted.

"Shouldn't I?" Merlin asked. And it sounded as if he truly didn't know.

"No," Gwaine stepped in. " _No_. This is who you are. You're our friend, and you're the king's servant, and now you're Court Physician, and you belong _here_." He jabbed a finger toward the ground beneath them. "In Camelot. This is where you should be. None of that other shit matters. None of it."

Leon stepped around, his face stained with the residue of shock, but clear when he said, "And it wouldn't change your bloodline. You'd still be Dyfedd's heir, even if you weren't…supposed to be here like this."

Again, Merlin seemed compelled to remind them, "Dyfedd doesn't exist anymore." He didn't protest the possible lineage this time though, which meant that maybe some part of him felt its truth too.

"You're still of noble blood," Leon replied. "My grandfather's kingdom is part of Camelot now. We're not royal anymore, but I'm still a lord."

"She would have told me," Merlin insisted, but even Arthur could tell that he was grasping at straws because his face said he didn't quite believe that his mother would have told him something like this.

"How could she?" Leon asked, sparing Arthur once again. "Uther executed her uncle – a man of his own family. Your bloodline carries magic, and a challenge to the succession besides."

"Then why did she send me here?" Merlin demanded, finally looking up at them, engaged and unhappy. His eyelids had bruised red, cheeks flushed from whatever this was doing to him, inside, but at least his eyes were still dry. "If it was so _dangerous_ ," he mocked. "Why here? She had to know someone might find out." He paused and chuffed out a breath clogged with disdain. "Gaius must have realized. He kept trying to get me to tell him who trained me, and I kept saying no one until he just suddenly stopped. He knew." He shook his head and chuckled meanly at his lap. "He talked to the dragon too." A frown pulled down at his face, roughening up the line of his jaw as the muscles moved beneath the shadow of stubble there. "Mum named me after him, like she suspected. They were all lying to me, weren't they? Everyone I love, they all lied."

Arthur felt a flash of anger and hurt at that, because he'd said much the same thing once to Merlin. _Is everyone I love lying to me?_ "Well, now you know how I feel." And then he winced because it was entirely the wrong response, and yet he meant it. Merlin fell still beside him now, and Arthur regretted saying it, but he also wouldn't take it back if given the chance.

"I had a right to know." Merlin sucked in a breath and turned his head to look at Arthur as if seeing him too clearly, too close.

Arthur nodded, a small thing, aware of both Gwaine and Leon shifting uneasily in the room with them, claustrophobic with the heaviness of whatever Merlin's stare carried.

Merlin sniffed to clear the congestion in his nose. "They used me." His voice came thick with hurt and a north country accent that a decade in Camelot had nearly purged from him.

"Perhaps," Arthur allowed. "But I don't think it's that simple."

"How is it not?" Merlin demanded, too calm now. Too quiet for it to be real. "Their prophet died, so they made a new one."

"I can't believe that," Arthur insisted. "Your father fell in love with your mother. You came from _that_ , not some conspiracy."

"You don't know that," Merlin pointed out. "I only knew him for a few days, and mum still never talks about him. And Gaius _sent him_ to her."

"He didn't even know he had a son until you told him." Arthur shifted, trying to make himself look supportive, or at least more certain. "He couldn't have been a part of it. Whatever he shared with your mother, that was real."

That seemed to shut Merlin up, finally, but only for a moment. "You made me promise never to lie to you again." He stopped fingering the soft fabric of the trousers Arthur had given him, and looked up. The nothing on his face was frightening, but in a remote way. Like it might not have actually been the expression on his face, except that his skin was shaped into that. "Swear it back. Promise me. You owe me that much."

The request demanded the same gravitas with which Merlin had regarded Arthur's just that morning, and yet Arthur didn't give that to it. "I promise," he said, not even thinking to hesitate.

Merlin lowered his gaze and faced his lap again, smoothing his hands down his thighs to his knees and then back up halfway, pulling at the fabric of the trousers Arthur had gifted to him without telling him. Little more than a whisper, Merlin replied, "Alright." It wasn't alright, though.

Arthur shook his head and looked down as well, unable to keep staring at the bow of Merlin's neck and the old hashed scars visible there. He fingered the royal crest, a dragon raised in gold relief, and wondered for a moment at his father's hypocrisy, taking a dragon as his symbol and then eradicating them all. From the corner of his eye, he watched Merlin squirm as if trying to figure out what he should be doing now with all of them standing around like salt pillars in his room. Arthur swallowed and unwrapped the pendant chain from around his hand, letting it swing down to smooth out the chinks and bends before he reached to drape it over Merlin's head.

Merlin flinched, but it seemed more at Arthur's hands appearing in front of his face without warning, than at being touched or having the pendant chain dropped into place over the back of his neck. He stared down for far too long at the royal crest swinging gently over his knees in Arthur's wake, and then grasped it to still it before giving Arthur a questioning look.

"You're family," Arthur explained.

"You can't just say that." Merlin went to remove the pendant. "They'll never accept it. I'm your servant."

Arthur pushed his hands back down to prevent him removing the crest. "It doesn't matter if it's just because my cousin and your grandmother were half-siblings. It's still a family link."

"You can't tell them that," Merlin persisted. "You tell them I'm related to – to a sorcerer who challenged your father's right to rule, and – and you think that's a good idea? Half of them already hate me, or think I'm slow, or that I have too much influence over you. How long would it take them to cry magic or claim I've enchanted you, or that I'm only here to ingratiate myself to you to avenge my family? They'll kill me no matter what you say just to prove their loyalty, and afterward claim they saved you."

Arthur shook his head, because no one hated Merlin, surely. How could they? "We can verify your lineage, and I can restore your status. It will be official."

"I'm still magic! Arthur, you can't."

It was Leon who broke them apart from struggling over the pendant, which Arthur hadn't even realized was growing embarrassing. Arthur brushed them both off and flung himself to his feet, but the only pacing his could do was in a circle that took him past Gwaine, who remained oddly silent, and right back up to Merlin's side. "I can take whoever I like as blood – it's my right as king."

"Even if you don't explain about my mother's family, wearing this will just make it look like you're claiming me as a consort."

Arthur flared his nostrils and glared at him. "You think it's that cheap?"

"No," Merlin breathed, the tilt of his head conciliatory. His fingers tightened over the crest as if he didn't want to let it go. "But _they_ will." He ducked his head long enough to slip the chain off and then he held it out to Arthur, his hand shaking just enough to notice and make the chain swing where it dangled like loops of lace between his fingers, or a fall of water uncontainable, slipping free. "I won't do that to you. I won't give them a weakness to come after you with. I won't let them think you're that kind of a king. Not even – " He broke off and Arthur finally realized how badly his offer had broken Merlin's composure - what it had meant to him for Arthur to claim him like family, however impossible, whatever his motives for doing so. Merlin swallowed hard and cleared his throat enough to force out, "Not even if it means I never stop being just your servant. You're the king, Arthur. The Once and Future King." He licked his lips, head shaking in denial as if it were beyond his volition. Innate. "That's more important than anything. _You_ are more important."

 _You are more important than me._ Arthur swallowed because he didn't need Merlin to say those last two words in order to make it clear what he meant. He blinked back his initial reaction to that, then dropped his eyes to Merlin's hand hovering, wavering palm up near Arthur's heart, offering back the regard of a king to safeguard the image of kingship. To diminish himself for Arthur's sake.

"Take it back," Merlin told him, gentle like a plea to save a life.

"No." Arthur looked up and forced himself to meet Merlin's beseeching gaze. "Keep it hidden it under your clothes if you must, but I'm not taking it back." He gave Merlin and the pendant both a look of disgust and turned away to fish the royal appointment out from beneath the disordered bedding. "And take this too." He turned back in time to catch Merlin clutching the pendant to his chest as if the gesture had effectively been a punch to the gut. "You already admitted you want it, and I announced it at council." He shoved the scroll up into Merlin's hands, forcing him to both step back at the force of it, and take the scroll. "I won't have you embarrass me by declining now. We can make allowances for your – " Arthur rolled his hand in a more violent gesture than was called for, and mentally tossed away any number of words for the fits just to avoid saying them aloud. " – your condition. You'll have an apprentice, page boys to run your errands, and a manservant of your own."

Merlin finally recovered his wits enough to splutter, "You can't just give me a manservant. I'm not – "

" _You are of noble birth_." Arthur punctuated each word with a stab of his finger at the ground, fuming too much to look at him as he spoke. His vision had gone strange anyway, tunneled, which he didn't need Merlin to notice. He kept his eyes trained on the corner of the room instead. "You are heir to a kingdom, and you are my _family_. I will give you anything I like to make your station clear."

"Dyfedd doesn't – "

" _I am not talking about bloody Dyfedd!_ "

Arthur was hyperaware of the volume of his own breathing in the otherwise silent room, like a crash of waves overwhelming the scream of a person drowning. He turned around, cognizant of Merlin gaping like a frozen fish, and Leon and Gwaine both trading wary looks, but it was George who actually caught his attention. The servant's eyes were blown wide, a far cry from the distant professional that Arthur disliked and mocked for being fanatically stuffy, however unfair it was of him.

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long, frustrated breath. "George. What is it?"

"I – my lords, I thought… The council meeting ran long, and you haven't eaten. I took the liberty of…bringing a tray." He glanced over his shoulder, out into the main physician's quarters, and then looked back, clearly at a loss.

"I see." Arthur scratched at his scalp, at the perpetually itchy line where the crown often rested. "Whatever you heard, you will repeat it to no one."

George all but vibrated with fervence. "Of course not, sire."

Though it was likely unnecessary, Arthur clarified, "On pain of arrest for treason."

"Yes, sire. I understand, sire. I'll tell no one."

Arthur nodded, studying this obsessively obeisant man with more suspicion than he probably deserved. George was as much a fixture in Camelot's royal household as Merlin, and yet he was always, _always_ , overlooked and mocked for his dedication to what most others (or perhaps only Merlin) considered a thankless role. "Wait in the corridor. I'll speak with you further once we're finished here."

George practically tripped over himself to bow and then retreated in more of a scramble than his usual silent competence.

Leon met Arthur's gaze once the outer door clunked shut and they seemed to share an understanding. Leon knocked his shoulder into Gwaine to get his attention, and then both of them left, though Gwaine seemed like he had no idea what was going on anymore. Leon would fill him in, and probably downplay the fact that their king had clearly lost whatever marbles he had left after Guinevere's death.

When Arthur turned back to Merlin, it was to find himself faced with the side of Merlin's head. The rays of sunlight shining through the cracks in the barred casement set him in relief against the glow, a precarious comma of a man with his head lowered toward his cupped hands, limned in a soft sunny glow, unfocused and contracted around blurred edges. Arthur swallowed and went to him, faintly sick in his stomach at how much a shadow Merlin looked in the light. "This wasn't how I wanted to have this conversation. I should have waited."

"No," Merlin breathed, his head still lowered toward the Pendragon pendant in his hand. "It would have been worse." He would know, of course. He'd been hiding a secret himself; it must have festered in him like poison the whole time he kept it – the whole time he thought Arthur didn't know. If anyone could speak to timing of a revelation of such gravity, it was him. "I'm just… I need a moment."

Arthur could see something else in Merlin's palm beside the royal crest, now that he was beside Merlin; it took him a moment to recognize his mother's sigil, and recall the long-ago night he'd given it to Merlin. They'd spoken of dying, and regret. _That's what you have to remember_ , Merlin had said from the other side of the campfire _. Things never turn out how you expect._ And they hadn't – not that quest, nor many others.

Arthur steadied himself with a quiet breath, his vision glassy across the room, and risked clasping his hand over the narrow tip of Merlin's shoulder, a knob hard as rocks and brittle bone beneath his palm. Merlin swayed a bit at the change in pressure, but he didn't pull away, so Arthur offered, "I know it is no recompense. It's not meant to be."

Merlin nodded, but his face was crumpling at the edges, the only parts Arthur could really make out in the shade from the light and the rough stubble blurring Merlin's jaw. "Arthur, I can't."

It was the same thing he'd said before, sitting around a campfire that probably served a poor defense against the dorocha wailing their pain and vengeance and loss through the night. Arthur wondered if Merlin had understood the meaning behind such a gesture even then, when Arthur had made him take his mother's mark and keep it. In Arthur's mind, he saw a boy with funny ears and gangly limbs accustomed to laying to sleep on a dirt floor in a house no better than a livestock hut, his only privacy a tattered curtain separating him from his mum. And he tried to remember that however well Merlin got on in Camelot – however well he'd taken to being Arthur's servant and Gaius's apprentice – however necessary a fixture Arthur considered him to be, however _right_ it was to look to one side and see him there at the right hand of the king – however powerful his magic made him – Merlin was still a peasant boy from a town of perhaps thirty men and women, in a land where most children did not survive the winters. He was noble. He would have been noble no matter his blood. But he wasn't raised to _be_ a noble. He was raised to _hide_.

"Look." Arthur glanced at the side of Merlin's face, at the twitch at the hinge of his jaw that betrayed the turmoil he was holding back, and then looked away again, eyes blankly searching the featureless wall before him as if it might lay out a map to help him navigate the mess his impulsivity had made of this whole issue. "I think we both know you'd make a terrible king. This isn't a sentimental decision."

Merlin let out a wet snort and Arthur saw him raise his head in his periphery to look at Arthur, finally. "So this is what you consider _practical_?"

"I'm not asking you to rule." Arthur tried to stop his fingers squeezing the knob of the shoulder still clutched in his fingers, but his thumb moved in a slow half circle anyway, like soothing a dog after he already had it by the scruff. "I'm not even asking that it be official, or that it be acknowledged." _Yet._ Maybe. "But it's a fact that I am the king, and as much as I am surrounded by loyal knights…and warlocks…" His fingers clenched and released on Merlin's shoulders, a sharper gesture than he intended, to go by Merlin's wince. "As much as I am protected, it is a fact that most kings do not die old in their beds. You are the only family I have left, by blood or by marriage." Arthur paused and let his lip wrinkle a bit. "Other than Agravaine's progeny, that is. And even if they're not as degenerate as their father, I would never willingly entrust the kingdom to them."

Merlin swallowed and looked back down at the two tokens resting innocuous and small in his hands. "I don't want your kingdom."

Arthur nodded. "I know. And that's exactly why I trust you with it. I know that you would do anything necessary to keep it in my hands, however much that thought troubles me more."

Merlin's outline wavered in the shaft of light through the casement, and then swam back into focus. He still held his hands hovering out before himself, but lower now, nearer his navel as if sinking beneath an imagined horizon. His elbows folded closer to his ribcage as Arthur watched, his stance the polar opposite of Arthur's open one. Opposites, they were. When Arthur felt lost or uncertain, he flung himself wide and apart like water dashed onto a flat rock. But when Merlin felt the same, he drew in to protect himself, all his pieces held close where no one else could touch them. Arthur watched Merlin closing in on himself like a leaf curling in the heat, turning small and narrow as it browned, and it was a little bit horrible because Arthur knew what he looked like with his eyes burnt gold and his desperation thick at his fingertips.

"Things _will_ be different," Arthur vowed, low and intense.

After a few moments of Arthur weaving to catch his eye, Merlin finally noticed and looked up, the movement of his head halting, like a man made of sticks and string.

"I swear it, Merlin." Arthur shook his head and spread his hands out at his sides, helpless, his mouth a rictus of a smile in earnest. "I _swear_."

Merlin's face collapsed around the edges and he swung his head away again to hide whatever else it threatened to do. "I stopped hoping for that."

Arthur swallowed and tried not to react to the knowledge that rather than being a symbol of hope, he had apparently become a beacon for the loss of it. Eventually, he nodded, because even he understood that words were cheap in the face of years of contradictory actions. Nothing he said could mean as much as that anymore. "I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon on a hunt for the Samhain feast. We'll be gone overnight, at least. I'd like you to come, if you're able. But not if it will endanger your health so soon after the…that." He jerked his chin at the door to indicate the fit he had walked in on earlier.

"Whatever you need," Merlin replied immediately. He looked up, face more normal, and seemed relieved to be leaving the more awkward conversation behind.

"Not as a beater or a servant," Arthur clarified, more forceful than he probably needed to be, but he could tell from Merlin's face that's what he expected to do on a hunt. "You'd come as the physician, and part of the hunting party. George and some others will do the serving; it will be a larger party than usual since we'll be after big game."

Merlin blinked and tipped his head, but nodded a moment later.

"Only if you're well enough," Arthur pressed.

"I'm fine." Merlin cleared his throat afterwards though. "I'll be fine for a hunt," he specified, which was likely as close as he'd come to admitting more weakness than he already had. "Besides," he smiled, small but sly. "Someone's got to look after your royal backside. Can't have you running off into the woods with nothing but knights to protect you."

Arthur smiled too, aware of the nervous tick of Merlin's limbs and the way he angled away, self-protective at the open acknowledgement of the magic he used in Arthur's service. Arthur wondered how long it would take for them to speak of it openly, in jest or otherwise, and regard it as just some casual thing between them. He found that he liked that thought; it felt like shared secrets, or perhaps no secrets at all – something close and comfortable and warm. He'd felt that once with Guinevere, and he missed it, though he hadn't known that until he felt it again here, now, with Merlin's face creasing into easy, private crinkles around his eyes.

"Exactly," Arthur murmured. He felt his own expression go soft and blur at the edges, staring at that tiny spark of happiness in Merlin's eyes. Such a simple thing, he thought, to please another like that, with so little effort. It felt like something huge and inflated in Arthur's chest, and it was hard to breathe around it for a moment. It was only after Merlin's face contracted with confusion that Arthur realized he had reached out to touch it where it originated on Merlin's face, Arthur's fingers stretched over a chasm between them to brush against the soft skin of a cheek swelling pale above a fledgling growth of beard. He felt briefly as if he should apologize, but he didn't know what for. Touching at all, maybe? "I missed that," he confessed suddenly. "The way you look at me. You haven't, in a while."

Merlin's brow wrinkled, but the skin around his eyes went slack. "I always look at you."

He didn't, but Arthur couldn't figure out how to articulate it without sounding like an insecure idiot – how it increasingly seemed like when Merlin looked at Arthur, he saw some overlay of Uther instead. How Arthur feared he saw it too, when he looked at himself in the glass. His fingers continued to play over Merlin's cheek and the side of his nose before he realized what he was doing and shook himself free. Arthur retreated and looked around as if he hadn't just been caressing his servant's face like a lover's and cleared his throat. "I have some business to attend to before supper. George will see to the usual arrangements for the trip; I'll leave the medicine to you. Be ready in the courtyard by the fourth bell tomorrow."

"Of course, sire." Merlin's voice came out hesitant.

"Good." Arthur couldn't manage to look at him, more afraid that he would see some kind of acceptance on Merlin's features, rather than censure. "Well." He flapped his hands out near his sides, flickered his eyes unseeing past Merlin's thin form, and then awkwardly walked out with no further explanation. Arthur shook his head at his own ineptitude as he motioned at George to follow him down the corridor, because really, he may as well have run away from Merlin screaming just then. They emerged out into the sunlight at the edge of the practice field and Arthur paused to watch a few of the lesser knights drill each other around a small space at the far corner while a few maids and retired soldiers watched on.

George stopped at a respectful distance behind Arthur and markedly did not fidget. "I've already prepared most of your things for the hunt, sire."

Arthur couldn't stop himself noting that Merlin would have never bothered telling him such a thing; it was entirely unnecessary, and he really didn't care. He just wanted it done, and to not think about it since that wasn't his job. "How much did you hear?"

Behind him, George cleared his throat. "Sire, I swear. I will say nothing."

"I know." Arthur turned and scanned the immediate surroundings for anyone close enough to overhear their conversation. "But that's not what I asked you. I need to know what else I need to explain." He flicked his gaze past the low path wall and hedge, the armory doors, and finally back to George. "I'm sure that you appreciate the delicacy of the matter. You saw me name him my heir, at the very least. Did you hear why?"

George glanced around as well, and then dropped his eyes to Arthur's chest. "I am aware of my lord Merlin's noble blood, sire. As no one has acknowledged it publicly, I assume that there is good cause for it to remain secret. It is not my place to question you, sire."

"And while I appreciate that," Arthur told him, teeth gritted at the non-answer and irritating subservience, "I didn't ask for blind assurances of obedience." Merlin would never have given him that kind of thing, for one. Arthur really needed to stop comparing all others to his former manservant, and finding them lacking for the simple fact that they behaved the way they were supposed to, as if that were a fault. "I asked you how much you already know of this."

George cast a furtive glance at Arthur's face and then blinked back toward his chest where Arthur's royal crest was pointedly _not_ present anymore. "That is all I know, sire."

Arthur stared hard at his averted face. "You know what magic smells like."

George swallowed, but maintained his dignity and his frankly alarmingly straight posture. "Yes, sire."

"Do you know of Merlin's condition?"

"Yes, sire."

Arthur flared his nostrils and wondered if pulling teeth weren't more productive, in general. "Tell me."

Again, George swallowed, but the veneer seemed ready to crack. "He has…magic. Sire."

Apparently, George had realized that, but not the condition to which Arthur actually referred. It was just as well – Arthur needed to know about this part too. "Yes, he has. Does that bother you?"

George shifted straighter, if anything, but his shoulders were more tense than usual – raised a bit in defense. He kept his gaze focused past Arthur's arm, resolute in the correctness of his stance. It made Arthur relax quite a lot when George's reply came just the slightest bit shaky. "No, sire."

Arthur nodded, but demanded, "In spite of my laws?" Partly to see if he would offer some defense against his admitted treason for hiding the identity of a sorcerer, but more because he just wanted to know. George was not the sort of fellow Arthur would have equated with subterfuge. He was too stuffy for that.

"My lord Merlin is not a threat, sire. He is loyal to Camelot."

Arthur tipped his head to one side at the brittle vehemence of that response. "Yes. And yet he breaks the highest law of this land every day, just being here."

"If you hold a bird down in a bucket of water, it cannot become a fish simply because it does not wish to drown, sire."

Arthur didn't move at first, uncertain how to interpret such a brutally poetic notion. Eventually, he gave a halting nod and turned away. "Walk with me."

"Yes, sire."

Arthur set an ambling pace down the gravel path that ringed the practice field, George one step behind him. "You have the unfortunate distinction of now being privy to these goings on," Arthur remarked, voice pitched low to maintain the privacy of their conversation. "It means that I will require more of you as manservant than I otherwise might."

"I am happy to serve however my lord requires," George assured him breathlessly.

"Don't be so eager," Arthur admonished, put off once again by the fervor of a man like George, excited over the thought of being overworked, like a damn hunting puppy. "I am giving you a choice. Merlin may not understand the concept – he thinks his only purpose in life is to serve my every whim, even to his own detriment – but Merlin's an idiot sometimes. You should consider more carefully."

George sucked in a sudden breath, but the immediate agreement that Arthur expected seemed to disperse as George digested what Arthur said.

Thank god; Arthur couldn't take much more mindless obsequiousness right now. "Merlin's magic is not what I meant when I referred to his condition. Due to repeated injury in my service, he now suffers periodic convulsive fits. They cause him some distress, and he is concerned that his ability to serve as court physician is diminished because of them. I won't have that."

A few beats passed while George turned that over in his head, gravel crunching underfoot in a dissonant rhythm of two mistimed sets of feet. "I am happy to assist as I may, sire." It was a more measured response this time – less ill-thought obedience.

"Good." Arthur spared a moment to mentally criticize the way one of his knights held his sword arm as they passed the mock fight nearby. "I realize that you two are not exactly friends."

George looked down as if that were his own personal failing, his shoulders going tense with his hands clasped properly behind his back. "Merlin is above my station, sire."

"Merlin would disagree." Arthur sighed and let the breeze shuffle his hair back from his face. "Obviously, I cannot appoint you to his service. It wouldn't be proper, as his rank is not known here. I also hesitate to hurt his pride any further than I already have. But he needs someone to consider his care. What I ask will not be simple for you. On the record, you will be my manservant, but between us, I expect that your loyalty would be first to him, not to me. Any duty you perform for me would be secondary, and would only be to maintain appearances that you are my manservant. Merlin will be your primary responsibility."

It took a moment for George to fully absorb that, and then he asked, "But then who will tend to you, sire?"

"Merlin is reluctant to part with certain of his duties," Arthur replied sourly, though inwardly relieved that he wouldn't have to suffer some stranger's imposition on his person. He had grown woefully accustomed to Merlin's care, however clumsy or lacking in the usual decorum. Or perhaps because of it. "For now, I am content to indulge him. Your duties with regards to me should be light – clean up my chambers, tend the hearth fire, do the washing, that sort of thing. Tending to Merlin will be a more delicate thing, I warn you. He'll resist you every step, and he's given to guarding his privacy for obvious reasons."

"Of course, sire." George nodded sagely, as if this whole business were not the slightest bit out of the ordinary. "It is perfectly understandable."

Arthur nodded, stopped, and rounded back around in a tight enough turn that George had to rear back a step to avoid running into him. "I want to be completely clear on this. When I say that your loyalty is first to him, I mean first even before me. If forced to choose, you will choose him. You will defend him, even against me. For all intents and purposes, you will consider your fealty sworn to Dyfedd, not to Camelot, and to him as heir to both. Do you understand?"

George stared at him like a stunned goat, and then swallowed hard before nodding. "I understand, sire."

"And are you still so eager to accept this task, knowing that?"

"If that is truly your wish, then yes, sire. I would be honored."

Arthur examined his face in an unkind way, hard with mistrust and terrified that his judgement of character was just as unreliable now as it had proven to be so many times in the past. "I will kill you if you bring harm to him."

The bob of George's throat gave the only indication of his unease. "I would expect no less, sire."

Arthur drew a deep breath to calm himself, and found that he felt a measure of relief in it. He backed off and watched George's shoulders loosen as well. "Good. You should speak with the interim physician and educate yourself as to Merlin's care. He'll also need assistants and runners – I trust that you can identify suitable candidates for him to consider. Some of the more knowledgeable midwives, for example."

"I will see to it immediately, sire."

"Good." Arthur turned again to scowl at the shoddy footwork of the showoff-knights dancing around at the other end of the green. "Go on, then. You have a lot to do today." He waved George off, half aware of the man hurrying back into the castle, and then made a face as he grabbed a quarter-stave and headed toward his idiot knights. "Sir Bleoberis! A handmaid could get a killing blow in under your guard. For the last time, drop your bloody elbow!"

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:** **The Changeling**

 _"I brought you your ceremonial sword."_

 _Without looking behind himself at Merlin, Arthur asked, "Is that for me to fall on?" He might have been joking, even._

 _"Hopefully not." There was some kind of mirth in Merlin's voice, as if the whole situation amused him on some level._

 _Arthur merely stood there and breathed, trying not to fall over or – or run away from Camelot entirely. Merlin would come with him if he did, though, so there was that to look forward to. At least he hadn't eaten much for breakfast, since it was likely to come back up if he had to wait there, thinking about what he was about to do for much longer._

 _Merlin took a soft breath behind him and asked, "What's wrong?"_

 _"You wouldn't understand, Merlin. You have no idea what it's like to have a destiny." Arthur blinked a few times in total disbelief of the fact that this was his life, even though he'd always known, always. He took a breath in the hopes of feeling less lightheaded and added, "You can't escape." He said it like he had only just realized that, or it had only now been driven home. How embarrassing would it be if he passed out before the doors opened?_

 _"Destinies…" Merlin sounded amused again, the idiot. Cheeky, but also maybe apologetic, as if he bloody well knew something that Arthur didn't. "They are troublesome things."_

 _Arthur shook his head, irritated and sick of being made to look and feel a fool, tr apped in his own life, powerless… Merlin was standing there with that irritating not-quite-smile of his, as if Arthur were being quaint again, or showing his noble naivety or something. Arthur took the sword from his hands and flicked his cloak out of the way so that he could sheath it. God, his hands were shaking._

 _"You feel trapped." Merlin had his head down, but not like a servant's bow. It looked more like shared secrets. Like something personal. But Merlin couldn't know; he was nobody. So it couldn't be personal. He sounded like he knew, though. He sounded just as frustrated as Arthur. Just as reluctantly resigned. "Like your whole life has been planned out for you, and you've got no control over – " He cocked his head in a pointed nod to the way that just rankled like nothing else, and huffed, " – anything." The word came out bitten, like irony. "And sometimes," he continued, his eyes fixed on something in the middle distance, something only he could see. "…you don't even know if a destiny decided is – " He blew out a wistful little breath, as if getting this out, getting it off of his chest, were both a relief and an added frustration. " – really the best thing at all."_

 _Arthur focused on his sword hilt again. He wasn't looking directly at Merlin, but he could see, in his periphery, Merlin pursing his lips and shaking his head after all of that. Arthur stopped fiddling with his sword, his head coming up in a jerky arc to stare. That was…too close. It was far too close for a servant. For a – a peasant. Because it was right there on Merlin's face: knowledge. Arthur could swear that Merlin knew – that he knew what this felt like. Himself. Personally. Arthur let his brow wrinkle, ashamed at feeling so desperate, all of a sudden, for confirmation that he wasn't alone – that Merlin really did know. That he shared this…terrible feeling of being trapped inside a gilded cage, a slave to a crown he never asked for, doomed to never be free to pursue his own happiness. Shackled the way commoners never were. He flicked his eyes down Merlin's deceptively bland exterior and then reset his feet to demand, "How come you're so knowledgeable?"_

 _"Hmm?" Merlin still wore that look, like he knew something Arthur didn't. Like what he had just said was truer than it could have possibly been. Secrets never told. Some Merlin hidden beneath his clumsy, annoying manservant. "Oh, I read a book."_

 _Arthur scoffed, his lip curling as he balked, because no. That wasn't something one reads in a book, and Merlin had that look on like what he'd said was some kind of inside joke that he expected to watch glide right over Arthur's head. Arthur slid his eyes, and then his face away, head cocked in contemplation because Merlin was making shifty eyes over that tiny smirk of his. Still amused. Still finding something about this mess funny. "What would this book tell you? Should I marry her?" He looked back up to see what Merlin's face was doing now, unwilling to give him any sort of privacy to hide this unlikely kinship._

 _Merlin straightened a bit and let his eyes unfocus off to one side. He seemed to think about it, to have some kind of sagely answer to give, but then he said, "It's not really my place to say, si –"_

 _"I'm asking you," Arthur interrupted, forcing his temper down, his impatience… Forcing his voice to be soft and steady because he didn't think that he could afford to scare Merlin off of this, or annoy him until he clammed up. "It's your job to answer."_

 _Merlin peered up at Arthur from a slightly downturned face, his voice rapid when he replied, "If you really want to know what I think?" Truly curious, that._

 _Arthur bobbed his head in affirmation._

 _Rather than reply right away, Merlin remained still for another heartbeat, his mouth slightly open as if ready o drop words all over the floor – as if he could barely restrain himself, but the look in his eye, peering askance at Arthur, spoke of something else. Not quite cunning, not quite coy. He was measuring something about Arthur before he decided whether or not to speak. Arthur tried to keep his face open and encouraging, because he wanted to know how Merlin would answer – how this Merlin, the strangely prescient one, would advise him._

 _Finally, Merlin ticked his head to the other side and quirked an eyebrow as if he were going all in on a gamble and couldn't entirely believe he was about to do so. "I think you're mad." He said it with conviction, swiveling to more fully face Arthur, and that familiar insolence invaded both his voice and his posture, though it sounded clipped at the edges, and his tone wasn't entirely controlled as he spoke. It wavered as if he wanted to shout, but couldn't. "I think you're all mad. People should marry for love." All of that sass and attitude that Arthur both loved and hated rushed to the forefront. It had the unlikely effect of cementing Arthur's attention though, because Merlin was insolent as a rule, not…this. Angry and borderline disrespectful, as if he were delivering a lecture to a child. As if he were disappointed that he had to say it at all. "Not convenience. And if Uther thinks an unhappy king makes for a stronger kingdom, then he's wrong, because you may be destined to rule Camelot, but you have a choice." He bobbed his eyebrows at Arthur as if to demand how Arthur could not know this. Something in Arthur's face must have met with his approval, because he nodded, just a tiny thing, and finished, "As to how you do it."_

* * *

Arthur swung his already cracked quarter stave at a lone straw man propped up haphazardly in front of the armory door, and reveled in the swift snap of wood. Half of the staff spun through the air over his head to scatter the gaggle of squires collected like geese by the weapons racks as a plume of straw and stuffing exploded in his own face. It was ridiculously, highly satisfying. And he hated how the violence of it soothed him. Before he could give himself a chance to indulge again, Arthur dropped the now useless stick left to him and fought to breathe through his temper as he stalked past the armory and into the castle. How did they expect to survive, fighting like amateur bandits – the _arrogance_! And to imply that Arthur was the one with the problem – that he needed to unwind and _get laid_? What did that have to do with sword stance? Bleoberis was a damn toad; Arthur would pair him with Percival from now on in training. Let him get his backside handed to him by a common tradesman, and then see how much _getting laid_ mattered in a battle situation.

Of course, it didn't help that the whole conversation had started with Bleoberis implying that his sister would be a perfect match for Arthur. Never mind that she was a second daughter from a second-rate bit of land with no prospects or wealth of her own, no lands, nothing to tempt a king –

Arthur stopped cold in the corridor and shut his eyes, his fists clenching hard enough to make his knuckles ache. It wasn't the girl's fault that she had no riches to bring to a marriage. It was also Uther's voice screaming through Arthur's head in that moment that a king must make an advantageous marriage, and that wasn't the girl's fault either. Arthur sucked in a snarling sort of deep breath and blew it too hard out through his teeth. Guinevere had brought nothing but her good nature to their marriage, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. It wasn't station that bothered him now, but the comment from one of the ladies observing them that Arthur had surely mourned long enough now to avoid any offense to his dead queen.

"You're allowed to be happy."

Arthur dropped the hand he had raised to dig at his brow and looked up. "How dare you – " Then he blinked, turned around, and found an empty corridor behind him too. Arthur quelled the feinting hollow in his chest and forced himself not to hold his breath as he turned in a full circle to confirm that no one else was there. For another dozen heartbeats, he held himself perfectly still as if he were hunting (without Merlin along to crash around scaring everything off for a mile). No footsteps, no breathing, no swish of a dress or pat-pat of bare feet made its way to his ears in the silence. Nothing. But he would swear that what he heard was a woman's voice, soft and aching. Barely there.

It was mad. Utterly beyond the pale, but Arthur felt a soft shiver pass over the surface of his skin, down one arm to drip off of his fingers, and then nothing. Just a draft, and a lone voice carried by chance through stone and distance. He realized with a start that he had stopped breathing, and gasped as his vision blurred from the lack of air. Knowing how pitiful he was for even considering it, Arthur bit his lip and then whispered, "Guinevere?"

A burst of laughter made Arthur jump, and then he cursed his own stupid heart. The laundry room was down at the other end of the corridor, and if he'd heard anything, it was just one of the washing maids' voices carrying clear through the stillness. Arthur sighed and let his eyes slip briefly shut before turning to find his way back to the main part of the castle, his temper gone like a whiff of flowers on the wind. He didn't have time for fancy any more than he did for anger. There were too many tasks to complete before the feast tonight honoring Merlin's appointment as Court Physician.

Arthur found Leon in the privy council chamber, tallying grain reports. There were times Arthur thanked god for Leon's ridiculous attention to mundane details, because whenever Arthur tried to do that, he came up with three different sets of numbers and a splitting headache. Leon, on the other hand, wore a satisfied smile and seemed to regard arithmetic as some kind of cathartic pastime, like a nice hot bath that never grew cold. A lot like the baths Merlin drew for him, actually. Because he really did have no sense of self preservation, the idiot. Ever-hot baths weren't even the most obvious of his tells.

Leon glanced up and his happy little smile grew to show teeth. "Sire! You seem calmer."

"Bleoberis is terrible with a sword. He's going to get himself killed – a bandit could take him out in two strokes."

Leon chuckled and offered a nod in response. "Shall I go over the grain reports with you?"

Arthur perched himself on the edge of the table and crossed his arms, absently peering about the rest of the mostly empty room. He chose to ignore the grain reports entirely and merely said, "So we're just not going to talk about it, then?"

Leon skipped a beat, and then straightened from his bend over the report-littered table. "Was there something you wished to clarify?"

"No," Arthur shook his head, brows raised in a kind of uncertainty. "I just…expected more opposition on the matter. I mean, I named him heir to the throne in front of two knights and a servant. It's kind of official now."

"Yes…?" Leon drew the single syllable out to a point just shy of disrespectful. "He _is_ next in line to the throne, unless you reverse your disinheritance of Agravaine's sons."

Arthur replied with an absent nod and frowned down past his own arms crossed over his chest like a breastplate. "He's right, though. They'll never accept it," he said, meaning the council in particular, but also the noble classes in general. "Naming commoners to the knighthood is one thing. Elevating a blacksmith's daughter to the queenship, fine. But naming my manservant heir to the throne?"

"He's not just your manservant, though," Leon pointed out reasonably. "He is heir. He's a member of the royal family through the marriage alliances of his mother's family, and through Aurelius' indiscretions with a princess of the royal house of Dyfedd. There is precedence and legal justification to naming him heir."

"Yes," Arthur allowed, but it tasted sour in his mouth.

Leon hesitated, then offered, "Would you feel better if I disagreed with you?"

Arthur narrowed his eyes at Leon and let his nostrils flair. "It annoys me sometimes that you can be so eminently reasonable."

Leon evidently took that as a compliment because his eyes crinkled and his facial hair moved around to obscure the upturn of his mouth. He sobered quickly, though. "It will cause unrest when it gets out." When, not if. "Myrddin isn't forgotten in Camelot. He's not spoken of, but he's not been erased either. Everyone will know he was magic, and that he was executed for it. They'll know that his claim to the throne could have challenged Uther's. That could work both for and against you, really; those sympathetic to magic will see Merlin as some kind of a savior – the vindication of his murdered great uncle, and a chance for a Camelot that they believe should have come to pass. Those who aren't sympathetic, who agreed with your father, will see him as a threat to Camelot, and to you."

That was at least more honest than Leon's typical supportive optimism. Arthur sighed. "I've put him in an untenable position, haven't I."

Leon's brows bobbed up once, but that was all he would grant. "Would you rather continue denying him his heritage altogether?"

"I'd rather see him happy with his life," Arthur said without thinking. "And he's not, right now."

Leon blinked and leaned back for a moment, straightening and turning away from his pile of dull reports. "Not everyone needs prestige for that."

Arthur glanced at him, long enough to see the confusion in his stance, and then pushed himself off of the table to pace slowly toward the other end of the room. "It's not material yet, anyway. Merlin can't confirm it; his mother never told him the names of his forebears. He doesn't know for certain that his lineage is what we think it is."

"Then we shall have to make certain." Leon approached him but stayed at a respectable distance from his king. "If you tell me where to find the Lady Hunith, I will go and escort her back to Camelot. Then we can have the truth from the source."

Arthur stared morosely at a wall tapestry – dragons wheeling in the sky above the highest turrets of Camelot. "She may have had good sense in leaving all of this behind," Arthur pointed out. "In raising Merlin to be his own free man."

"But she hasn't," Leon countered gently. "She's lied to him, hidden his roots from him, and then she sent him here, where he could have been killed."

"I cannot believe it to be malicious," Arthur replied, shaking his head. "She loves her son – I've seen them together."

"I don't doubt that," Leon said. "But the fact remains: she sent him to Camelot, knowing the danger. We have to ask why a mother would do that to her magical child."

Arthur's eyes roved unseeing over the tapestry until it caught on the figure of a man with his hands held up toward the dragon. He hadn't thought too deeply about the manner in which his father had betrayed Merlin's – of the cruelty inherent in it. To extend the hand of peace to a man so good, so guileless that he _believed it_ and accepted. And then to use that man – force him to unwittingly betray his own kin – and afterwards, pursue him through enemy kingdoms like a madman, drive him from those he loved, deny him his son, and leave him to rot alone in a dank, musty cave at the edge of the wilds. And for what? "Because Camelot is ruthless," Arthur replied, calm and empty at the thought. "Because my father would have killed him, if need be. And Merlin's power frightened her." Arthur skewed his gaze over to Leon. "The way it frightens Merlin himself."

Leon studied Arthur for a moment too long, impolite simply in its duration, and then asked, "And does it frighten you, sire?"

Arthur swallowed, the bob of his throat a hard click against his trachea, and whispered, "Yes. His power frightens me. But I'm not afraid of _him_."

"And that," Leon acknowledged, so like the teacher of battle drills he had once been for a much younger, unformed Arthur, "is an important distinction, sire."

Arthur looked back for a moment, and then pressed his lips into a dissatisfied line. "If you leave at first light and ride steady, you can reach Ealdor by nightfall tomorrow. It's just beyond the ridge of Essetir, in the vale on the other side of the river. You can see it clearly from our own borders."

Leon smiled as if Arthur had passed some sort of test of character. "Then I shall ride at first light, sire."

As Leon started to turn away, Arthur snapped out a hand to grasp him by the bicep. "I won't have her forced to come here."

Leon turned back, attentive. "Of course not, sire. She is, after all, a queen."

 _Suspected_ , Arthur thought. But all he said was, "Yes, assuming that her mother no longer lives, which is likely. But she gave that up, and has dwelt in poverty for most of her life. I have to respect that she may have good reasons for that. She may even be happy as she is. You will tell her beforehand what we want her for, and give her the option to refuse."

Leon gave a small bow in concession. "I will not interfere with the queen's will."

Arthur released him and stepped back. "I hardly need stress the confidential nature of this errand."

"I understand what is at stake, sire."

"Good." Arthur glanced away, and then said, "I plan to have a small dinner in the dining hall tonight, in honor of Merlin's appointment. He would be glad to see you there."

At this, Leon finally grinned. "I wouldn't miss it." Then he bowed, gathered his records, and left with no further delay to prepare for his upcoming journey.

* * *

 _"Mordred saved my life," Arthur pointed out. "What greater debt could there be?" He descended into a gully and stepped over several branches._

 _"The debt to your people," Merlin replied, walking too close behind him. "To your destiny."_

 _"You almost sound as if you care." Arthur peered around on instinct, looking for threats or anything out of place. Merlin's attitude about all of this troubled him; it wasn't like his servant to be so bitter. So cold. Just getting him to agree to this excursion back out to the cave of the Disir had been a challenge in patience._

 _"I do care."_

 _Could have fooled him. In truth, Arthur was under no illusion that he could force anything from Merlin. And it made him wonder why on earth Merlin had come at all when he seemed so against it._

 _Merlin dogged his footsteps, just a hair away from treading on Arthur's ankles. "About who you are, Arthur." He sounded winded from their hike through rough forest. Or maybe it was something less benign. "Who you are destined to become."_

 _"If it's fated, it doesn't matter what I do, does it?" Arthur snapped, annoyed now. He was tired of hearing this time and again – this destiny rubbish from his idiot secret sorcerer. "It'll still happen."_

 _"There is a difference between fate and destiny."_

 _Rounding on Merlin, he managed to speak over the tail end of Merlin's assertion. "You think too much, Merlin." He watched the insubordinance rise to twitch in Merlin's face like a shadow of contempt, and then fade again. When had he grown so bitter? He used to speak of Arthur and destiny as if it were glowing right in front of him. His faith used to be more than just…habit. Like a tired old chore. As if his belief in Arthur were a necessary inconvenience. As if he had no choice but to have faith in his king, and resented that fact more often than not._

* * *

It was probably entirely unnecessary for Arthur to seek out Sir Geoffrey as soon as he parted from Leon, but it ate at him, and while he relished the thought of Geoffrey finding out that Arthur knew in some other more shocking manner – maybe an announcement at court, or just some vague, offhand comment and a pointedly dark look over a state dinner – Arthur was tired of the subterfuge and intrigue of court. It was exhaustion that drove him to just get this over with now, and let them both know where they stood with the other. Geoffrey was the official court historian and records keeper; Arthur needed them aligned, and he needed the secrecy of his father's reign to end once and for all.

Sir Geoffrey was not in his library as usual. Arthur eventually found him in the vaults taking inventory of those objects and treasures which remained locked away for various reasons, either for their value, their significance to the crown, or their magical properties. Of course, this was also within the purview of Geoffrey's role, so it was not unusual for him to verify the contents at regular intervals. Arthur watched him counting things for a while, ticking off various items here and there in a ledger, oblivious to the intent gaze of his king behind him. Eventually, Arthur grew bored with this and pulled the vault door closed to allow them privacy for the conversation that Arthur needed to have.

Sir Geoffrey jumped at the soft boom of the large wooden door as it thumped and echoed shut. "Sire!"

Arthur nodded and ambled forward, loose as if he were baiting an opponent on the field. He kept his gaze directed to the left, at the various glittery objects kept behind bars down here like prisoners of a mad king's greed. "I heard an interesting bit of information today."

Geoffrey went still, and Arthur could see clearly for once that he used to be a knight. "Is it something I can assist you with, sire?"

"I assume that you are familiar with the old court at Dyfedd."

It was subtle, but there: the hesitation. "Yes, sire. As I'm sure your highness is aware, the last king of Dyfedd was defeated by your father in the battles waged by the sons and clansmen of Hengist the Saxon. He did not survive, but many of the royal court were given clemency to live out their lives in the court of Camelot."

Arthur nodded. "Is that, then, how my cousin, the so-called mad prophet, came to be here at the start of my father's reign? With his mother the princess Adhan, and the rest of his family?"

Geoffrey glanced around and took a step back until he could lean for support against an old cedar chest. "Adhan was queen by then. She was permitted to retain her rank, though her lands and rule passed to Camelot."

"I see that it is not ignorance which kept this information from me." Arthur clenched his hands and fought to remain calm. "Perhaps then, Sir Geoffrey, you would like to explain why I had to learn from two of my knights like some sordid tavern rumor that I have kept as my manservant, for over _ten years_ – " Arthur bit his tongue and lowered his voice again; he didn't want to attract the attention of any guards to eavesdrop on this conversation. More modulated, Arthur continued, " – a boy who is not only of noble blood, but _royal_?"

"Your father would have killed him."

Arthur paused a moment, and then had to ask, "And am I so like him that you would think the same of me?"

Geoffrey seemed bent in that moment, and older than his years alone might indicate. "Forgive me, sire. But your change of heart has been quite recent. You have killed many who may not have deserved it."

Arthur let his head slide to one side, and his gaze hovered somewhere low toward the floor. Finally, he simply said, "Yes."

"The boy deserved a chance at a normal life. To see him killed for nothing more than paranoia over the magic that flowed in that family…if he had none of it himself, as I had always thought…it would have been unjust."

"Then it's true. His heritage." Arthur shook his head, but not to negate any words spoken here. "You know this for a fact? You would swear to it?"

Geoffrey took a breath long enough to expand his ribcage, but for all of the air he took in, it still sounded shallow in his body. "The Lady Gwendydd is his grandmother. I knew her quite well, and Bleise was a brother in arms, for all that he was not a knight. I will admit, I pretended ignorance to protect their grandchild. He knew nothing of where he came from, and it seemed little harm to allow him his life. But yes; the boy…" He shook his head then and corrected, "Not a boy anymore. Merlin. He is directly descended of Dyfedd, and the last born of its blood. He is its heir."

The air seemed stale and close, unmoving through the corridors amongst the detritus of years of war spoils in the vaults. Arthur felt lighter for a moment – vindicated, though it seemed a terrible secret on its surface. "You have lied to me," he felt compelled to point out. "To my face, directly and with intent to deceive."

To his credit, Geoffrey made no effort to lessen the offense with excuses. "Yes, sire. I have."

Arthur merely nodded. He could make an issue of it, and as king he probably should, but the prospect alone exhausted him. He had grown sadly accustomed to being lied to; what was once more in the grand scheme of things? And he agreed on one point at least; Merlin did deserve a chance to live his life. His birth, his blood, was no fault of his. And Arthur himself would have been a poorer man without the challenge that Merlin laid at his feet every day to be better. To be that shining king of a golden age that he used to talk about.

Finally, Arthur turned back to regard Geoffrey's bowed back, and the top of his lowered head. "Thank you, Sir Geoffrey. For both the lies and the truth."

Sir Geoffrey looked up at that, his face oddly devoid of expression.

"I'll leave you to carry on with your work." Arthur took a breath and turned away, but not quickly enough to miss the surprise and relief on Geoffrey's face, or the way it seemed to break whatever thin veneer of composure he had managed to affect. When Arthur reached the door, he glanced back simply as a side effect of turning to slip through the heavy door. Geoffrey had sagged awkwardly on the cedar chest, his face in one hand, shoulders heaving in silence as he breathed. There was no need for Arthur to threaten him, should he ever lie or mislead again.

* * *

 _Arthur cast a frantic look around the ring of knights, of common people – everyone – materializing from the trees around the sword in the stone, then whirled on Merlin. He tried for incensed but what came out in his voice unfortunately tended more toward panic. "What the hell are you playing at?"_

 _"I'm proving that you're their leader and their king."_

 _He wanted so badly to just smack that smug look right off of Merlin's face, the bloody sorcerer. "That sword is stuck fast in solid stone." Did Merlin take him for a fool? Was this a trick? Really? After all of this time, he was going to betray Arthur now? Wasn't he already all but ruined?_

 _Merlin just looked at him, his expression full of…full of faith and love for his king. Surety. "And you're going to pull it out."_

 _"Merlin, it's impossible." This had to be a trick. What better way to humiliate him? Arthur had just lamented the night before how he misjudged everyone, how he all but allowed them all to deceive him, and here was a sorcerer, a liar of a man Arthur thought was on his side, against all odds, setting him up for failure._

 _"Arthur, you're the true king of Camelot."_

 _Oh god, he wasn't kidding. Merlin was…serious. This was genuine – he actually expected Arthur to do it, and succeed. It was terrifying, the complete lack of doubt on his face. Arthur glanced back at the stone, then past it to the crowd of people arrayed in sections of concentric rings all around them. He rounded on Merlin again because that was easier than looking at a hundred people all wearing the same kind of faith that Merlin had for him. "Do you want me to look like a fool?"_

 _"No, I'm going to make you see that Tristan's wrong; you aren't just anyone. You are special. You and you alone can draw out that sword."_

 _He meant that. Every word. Merlin was a shit liar; Arthur knew when he was doing it. And right now, he wasn't. He was being weird and intense and just…spouting off rubbish like any sorcerer Arthur had ever met, but he was so earnest about it. Arthur looked at the sword stuck into the stone. It was a beautiful sword. It was. But seriously, how could Merlin's ridiculous "legend" be true? Arthur would have heard of it. Or his father would have found and destroyed the thing, magical as it was. He shouldn't do this. Magic…he saw what it did to Morgana. How it warped and ruined her. But Merlin was magic too, and Merlin… Arthur had misjudged so much in his life, but Merlin never wavered. He never changed, he never…corrupted. Magic was dangerous. It had to be. But Merlin was not. Were there other magics out there like him? Benign ones? Something…pure in the midst of all of the rot?_

 _Arthur glanced around at the trees, aware that he was looking for an excuse now not to do it – not to touch the magic sword. His father would be appalled. Arthur himself couldn't believe that he was going to do this. But Merlin had a way about him. He wasn't like other magic. Arthur wished he knew why a sorcerer would ever stand beside him. He wished he could accuse Merlin of spying for Morgana, of manipulating and betraying him. But he couldn't. Nothing Merlin did spoke of subterfuge. He was just loyal. Stupid-loyal, the way he had always been._

 _The old worn sword hilt caught for a moment in Arthur's belt as he drew it out and awkwardly thrust it into the ground near Merlin's feet. He looked at Merlin, and he wanted to say something about the secret between them, about the magic. But it wasn't the time. "You better be right about this."_

 _Merlin merely looked pleased, his mouth curving in a wry, knowing line. Arthur put his back to his utterly mad sorcerer and approached the stone on hesitant feet. It felt like watching magic at his father's deathbed, too close. Too immediate. Too easy to touch. He contemplated whether this temptation were part of the corruption of magic, or part of the wonder. It seemed innocent enough, that sword. Rich and shining, gilt with runes and gold braid. Arthur pursed his lips and flickered his gaze over the still crowd, waiting as if holding their breath. It made him uncomfortable, how no one else seemed to see the peril of what was in front of him._

 _Arthur licked his lips and swung both hands to the hilt, the leather of his gloves creaking as he adjusted his grip and set his feet, still not sure that he should be doing this – touching it, a magical relic. It didn't feel magical, though. It felt like any other sword, hilt cool from the earlier morning dew. And it only shone in the sunlight. He clenched his jaw with a deep breath and pulled, but the sword merely shook from the strain of Arthur's muscles. It wouldn't budge._

 _"You have to believe, Arthur."_

* * *

Arthur started at the creak of his chamber door hinges and accidentally dislodged George's fingers from plucking at his stubborn jacket buttons. "Merlin. I should make some comment about knocking, but it gets tired after ten years."

Merlin tipped his chin and gave Arthur a look from the corner of his eyes as if to say that he should know better by now. "Why? Are you doing things in here that you shouldn't?"

Against his will, Arthur barked out a laugh. "Shut up, Merlin. George, go on about your business. Merlin can help me with the rest of this."

George bowed and gathered up a bundle of bedding before also bowing to Merlin and making a silent exit. Merlin paused halfway across the room as soon as George bent in the middle at him. Once the door closed over the other servant, he tilted his head and then swiveled to peer suspiciously at Arthur. "What did you do?"

Arthur made his eyes wider, like an innocent puppy, he hoped. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Help me off with this." He gave his collar a pointed tug. "It's too tight."

"Yes, well if you would – "

"If you value your continued existence, you will think very carefully about what you say next."

Merlin merely smirked at the buttons as he undid them. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of mentioning your circumference again, sire."

Arthur's eyes narrowed of their own accord, but since the damn fabric finally parted ways with his neck, he let it go. "You know, it just occurred to me. All these years I've been harping on you about proper address and titles, and as it turns out, you've been completely within your rights to call me by name this whole time."

Merlin's hands slowed as he drew the jacket from Arthur's arms, but he recovered a moment later, fingers picking imaginary lint from the sleeves as he turned to put it back in the wardrobe. He made some kind of sound that Arthur assumed was supposed to be a laugh, but it sounded strained. "I thought you didn't like this jacket."

"I don't," Arthur confirmed, frowning at Merlin's back and the way it moved under his clothes as he arranged the offensive garment back onto a hanger. "George hasn't learned my preferences yet."

"Ah." Merlin paused to regard the jacket, bit the inside of his cheek, and then slotted it into place on the rod with the rest of Arthur's formal jackets. "I'll, um. Fill him in, then." When he came back, he was holding a fresh tunic rather than a properly fitted jacket. "Take that one off, then."

"This one's already clean," Arthur told him.

"Yeah, but it's the itchy one. Come on." Merlin gestured at him with the new tunic. "Off."

Arthur blinked down at himself before he went ahead and tugged the laces loose so that he could slip it off over his head. "Right." He handed it over, and probably studied Merlin a bit too intently as he tossed it aside and held the new tunic up for Arthur to slip his arms through. After Arthur ducked his head through the collar, he stopped Merlin from doing up the laces and instead, pressed his open palm to Merlin's chest, over his sternum. Merlin stilled like the aftermath of a knee jerk reflex and seemed to breathe deliberately while Arthur felt around the edges of the royal crest concealed underneath the thick brocade of his robe. He gave Merlin an apologetic smile after and shifted his focus. "This was Gaius's robe, wasn't it?"

Merlin cleared his throat and stepped back to compulsively smooth the brushed olive-hued wool down his ribcage. "George took a few of his council robes to alter so they fit me. The nicer ones, anyway. He didn't wear this one much." His fingers gentled and traced some of the jacquard patterned stitching along the centerline of his chest.

"Looks good on you. Better than your drab brown leather jacket thing." Arthur stepped around him and tugged at the looser fabric near Merlin's hips to reveal the long cuts splitting the skirt of the surcoat into four cardinal sections. "Ah, and you can ride in it. That's good." He realized what he was doing only because Merlin stopped breathing entirely that time and twisted his head to look past his shoulder at Arthur. "Um." Arthur removed his hand and blinked awkwardly down at his own fingers while he collected himself. "Sorry."

Merlin swallowed and also faced away for a moment before turning to do up Arthur's tunic laces. It seemed like he wanted to suck at his lower lip or bite the inside of it, but didn't want to give himself away by doing it.

Just to try and dispel the sudden tension bleeding out between them like a severed artery, Arthur remarked, "George really is frightfully efficient."

Merlin started to say something but it fizzled out in his throat somewhere. He rubbed at his nose with the almost-too-long cuff of his sleeve, and then spun away to find a suitable jacket, his eyes lowered where Arthur couldn't see to read the expression in them.

Arthur sucked a breath deep into his chest, puffed out his cheeks, and then sighed. "Look, I know that this isn't exactly a festive occasion. You wouldn't be court physician if Gaius weren't…" He stopped himself defining that because he really didn't know if it would be insensitive or not.

"Dead?" Merlin approached him with a more well-worn jacket, wearing a false veneer of nonchalance. "Here." He held the jacket up and open for Arthur.

Arthur studied the garment for longer than it deserved, and then reached up to cover Merlin's fingers on the jacket's empty shoulders. He pushed them toward the floor so that he could see the shadows in Merlin's downturned face. "He would be proud of you."

Merlin's jaw went hard for a moment, and then he nodded, but he didn't look up. "I know."

"And, um." Arthur prevaricated, breathing harder than the situation justified. "Guinevere too. She would have…." Arthur squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to force back the upwell that threatened to stop him finishing. After swallowing something that felt like wads of carded wool in his throat, and then clearing it, Arthur continued, "She would have been happy for you. Sad as well, about Gaius, but she always wanted…good things…for you. She would have been pr – "

"Don't."

" – oud of you." Arthur ticked, confused. "Don't?" He dropped his gaze to his now empty hands, fingers curling where Merlin had wrenched his own back out of Arthur's grasp. The jacket appeared in front of his face again, held open, and Arthur wondered if it were possible for someone to hold a jacket aggressively. Rather than risk forcing a confrontation, Arthur elected to speak to the jacket instead of to Merlin directly. "Look, I know I've been…angry, lately. When anyone mentions her."

" _Please_ don't." Merlin all but shoved the jacket at Arthur's chest, and then tried to get behind him as if he could just slip it onto Arthur without him realizing.

Arthur allowed it and shrugged until the jacket sat comfortably across his shoulders. Merlin came around front of him again, and as he plucked the fiddly buttons through their proper holes, Arthur murmured, "Thanks."

"Oh," Merlin drawled, the levity thin and forced. "You're taking this alleged nobility thing seriously if you're thanking me now."

As he turned away, Arthur scoffed under his breath. "It's not only that. I should have been saying it before now."

"Manners were never your strong point." Merlin rummaged about the shelf in the wardrobe and pulled down a long surcoat-like vest. It was one of Arthur's older coats – one that his father had given him – supple dark brown leather that reached from shoulders to ankles. Merlin turned around, still inspecting the vest for damage, and said, "So I'm sure you'll understand if I find it a bit disingenuous." He slowed his steps and then leaned onto his back foot with a long breath. "I'm sorry. That wasn't – "

Arthur came forward to meet him, and shook his head when Merlin tried to hold out the vest. When Merlin didn't make any attempt to finish his broken sentence, Arthur inhaled carefully. "I haven't been a very good friend. To you."

Merlin bit his lip and swallowed at the leather bundled in his hands. "We'll be late to the dining hall." He shook out the vest and held it open for Arthur. "Sire?"

Arthur stepped closer and ignored the vest, causing Merlin to fold his arms in to hold the vest to his torso. "Guinevere used to lecture me for being insensitive." He let the smile surface for a moment, a memory painted in sepia tones in his mind of a small cottage and a warm fire, and the heat of Guinevere's frustration with him as she yelled at him for taking her bed without even thinking of her circumstances. When he blinked away the feeling of her, Arthur caught Merlin forcing the lines of his own face smooth again, but not from a happy memory. He looked pained at the mention of her name again. "You said that you hear her voice," Arthur ventured, and Merlin flinched back again. "What does she say?"

"It's not important." Merlin flapped the leather vest to hang smooth again and shoved it at Arthur as if he could press it through his skin and onto him that way. "Come on – we'll be late."

"We've plenty of time," Arthur countered, his brows drawing into a furrow. It occurred to him that however much he himself prickled and shouted at the mention of his deceased wife's name, Merlin hardly mentioned her either. "Why can't you talk about her?"

"I've tried – you don't want to hear it. Put your arms up." He tried to angle around behind Arthur again.

"No, you haven't." Arthur rotated to keep them facing each other, even if Merlin wouldn't exactly look at the man right in front of him. "You cut it off too, every time someone does more than just mention her in passing." They danced around in a circle for a moment before Merlin gave up and scrubbed his sleeve across his forehead, the vest still dangling from his fists. Arthur shook his head, worried and confused. "What does she say to you?"

Merlin barred his teeth from under the forearm blocking his face, then sniffed in a huge breath as if to fortify himself. He held the vest up again, face forcibly blank. "Nothing. Here – hold out your arms."

"She doesn't…" Arthur felt his lip curl up at the very notion, but said it anyway. "She doesn't blame you, does she?" Not that he believed Guinevere would wander around the castle as a shade talking to people, whispering poison at them, but grief could do funny things to people. "Because she wouldn't," Arthur told him more forcefully, aware like a trickle of spring water from a rockface that he was thinking of the other Myrddin in that moment – the one who everyone seemed to know for his madness. "She would never blame you for what happened." For visions that may or may not have been true.

"Would you please just stop and put this on." Merlin shoved at his shoulder in an effort to turn him around.

Aghast, Arthur demanded, " _Is_ that what you hear her say?"

"No, just… We have to go to dinner." Merlin wasn't breathing exactly right, but any number of emotions could have caused that, and his face wasn't doing anything especially telling. His hands were trembling, though. Not much – not enough to be alarming – but enough to notice. Kind of like muscle fatigue, fine and shivery.

"No? Then what?" Arthur pushed his hands aside again, the vest dragging on the floor for a moment as a result.

"Stop." Merlin wrenched himself out of Arthur's grasp and went to force the vest up one of Arthur's arms. "It's not important. Just put this on so we can go."

"It is important." Arthur extracted himself calmly and left Merlin with the vest again. He could tell that the calm, the steadiness was fracturing, and it may have been cruel of him, but he wanted to break it to see what lay beneath. Merlin twisted around to go at Arthur with the vest again, and as absurd as it was, Arthur danced back as if he were on a battlefield parrying blows from a leather garment. He tried not to let his concern or his puzzlement show, but he wasn't sure it worked, and when their gazes finally strafed each other, there was something wild in Merlin's. Without thinking, Arthur reached a hand out to touch it, it looked so foreign there. "Merlin – "

"Don't – " Merlin flinched back to avoid Arthur touching his face.

"Just stop," Arthur whispered, pleading. He feathered his hands at Merlin's collarbones instead, and then firmed them up to hold him still. "Stop."

It was a relief when Merlin actually did stop, subsiding between Arthur's hands with the vest clenched to his diaphragm, the bottom a pool of leather covering his feet like a blanket. Merlin swallowed and looked down at it, eyes gliding shut while Arthur held him by the shoulders as if holding him down to the ground so that he didn't float away.

There was something captivating about another man's pain – how it twisted his insides and wrung him silent and limp like a wet bath sheet. As soon as Merlin seemed calm again, Arthur let him go and stepped back, hands held out and open in a gesture of surrender. It occurred to him, as Merlin pulled at the leather vest's seams as a focus to stay where Arthur put him, that maybe Merlin carried more guilt than anyone realized. He had no one to absolve him, after all; how could he when nearly everything of consequence that he did had to remain secret? The only perspective he had on any of his actions was his own, and Merlin wasn't the kind of man who forgave himself easily. Arthur knew that – he had seen enough of it to know that this responsibility, this guilt, defined a large part of who Merlin was, just as it defined Arthur as king. Merlin didn't let it go, though. Maybe he didn't know how, but one thing Arthur could say for certain was that if he didn't, it would eat him alive one day.

"She wouldn't blame you for her death." Arthur backed up another step because he wasn't sure that Merlin could understand or accept that, and Arthur had seen enough of his temper breaking lately that he thought it prudent to offer space for it this time. "You did everything you could to save her."

Merlin twitched his head to one side and Arthur watched the leather crease in his fists. "If that were true, she would be here." He seemed to be trying to swallow again and failing, like bile that wouldn't go back down. He held up the vest one more time, a puppet dangling in a box repeating the same trick again and again and again with painted-on eyes that never actually focused on the things they faced. "If you'll just put this on, sire?"

Arthur shook his head in disbelief and finally just allowed Merlin to put it onto him, since he seemed so fixated on the act. Once they were facing each other again, Arthur stared at the furrowed eyebrows in front of him while Merlin laced up the front of the vest. "You really believe that – you have _that much_ ego?"

"It's not ego." Merlin yanked too hard at the laces, and Arthur concealed the wince via manly tongue biting. "I'm the most powerful sorcerer to walk this land."

Arthur scoffed. "And that's _not_ ego? I'm not sure I'm the prat here anymore."

Merlin squinted and blinked, his fingers pausing on a tangle of leather laces, but he shook his head a moment later as if Arthur were the one being stupid. "I can control the balance of life and death. If I had wanted Gwen alive, then she would be." He fiddled the laces back into order and tightened everything in a line down the center of Arthur's chest, from the notch of his throat to that delicate space between belly button and groin.

"Merlin, that's…" Arthur shook his head, aware that he was baring his front teeth under a wrinkled lip in that manner that made him look like a simpleton, and yet not really caring for once. He couldn't find a word suitably strong enough to convey how utterly wrong the whole notion was. "Do you even remember what happened there?"

Merlin tied off the laces and flared his nostrils as he headed away toward Arthur's desk to retrieve the crown. He ducked his head a bit and scrubbed his face into the crook of his arm, an uneasy and self-conscious motion. "No. It doesn't matter."

Arthur let his eyes go wide and his face slack. "Doesn't _matter_? You're judging conduct you don't even remember."

Merlin made a show of concentrating on the crown, as if their conversation weren't worth his full attention. As if it didn't mean anything to him, which was a huge tell as far as Arthur was concerned. Merlin cared about everyone and everything. "It's obvious. I don't need the memory of it to know what happened." Merlin frowned and sniffed at the crown, then picked up a cloth to buff at bits of filigree before bringing it over to Arthur.

Arthur waited for the weight of the crown to fall over his brow, then immediately removed it and tossed it behind him onto his bed. Merlin blankly watched it bounce across the mattress and tip over against a pillow, nodded, and then just wandered away to sink down on the bench at the tree table. Arthur remained where he was for a moment, just watching the sag of Merlin's shoulders and the way he drew his elbows in as if to protect his own ribcage, one hand picking in compulsive bursts at his forehead and hairline, his head hanging lower than the nobs of his upper spine where it merged to form his neck. Eventually, Arthur sighed and glanced back at the discarded crown before going over to perch next to Merlin on the bench. He rested his forearms on his knees and clasped his hands between them, then turned his head to look at Merlin, at the curve of an ear peaking out from beneath dark hair. At the arc of a tree branch covered in a corner of bedsheet stretched hanging over his head like a ghost. Arthur waited for Merlin to say something first even though he knew that wouldn't happen, and then he sighed. "You did everything you could to save her. I saw it, Merlin."

"Then why isn't she here?" Just a breath, that. Merlin may not even have said it, except that the syllables lingered between them.

Arthur shook his head and sucked his lips in against his teeth. "You didn't see her body after." He had thought he could spare Merlin from the memory of that day, but keeping his peace made it worse. Secrets festered, after all. Hadn't Arthur learned that time and again? Silence was a disease, not a mercy. "It wasn't just the enchantment. When Morgana threw her away from the water, it…broke her. She hit the ground hard, and it…she just…" He tried to bring words to it, to the unnatural protrusion of vertebrae when he went to move her cooling body. To the…the bend of her. "And it was killing you. You were pulling it out of her, and… You remember the welts." He reached out on reflex to trace the back of Merlin's hand where a ropey red wheal had wrapped over the skin for a month afterwards, but Merlin shrank from him, so he let it be. "The black things. You remember what you said? They were trying to get inside."

"That was a dream," Merlin croaked. He traced the phantom line of the same welt Arthur had been reaching to touch.

"It was a memory," Arthur corrected. "You were pulling them out and they screamed like banshees."

"Mandrake." Merlin turned puffy, pale eyes onto Arthur's face. "You heard them?"

Arthur nodded.

"Only magic folk are supposed to be able to hear them."

Arthur shrugged. "There was magic everywhere that day. Maybe that was enough." He looked away again when Merlin did. "I had to make a choice, Merlin. She was dying, and you were… You wouldn't stop. So I pulled you away." Arthur rocked in place and shook his head, swallowing and breathing to force back the smell and the sound, and the sight of it. Merlin fought him on it, of course. All the way into the water, he screamed at Arthur to let him go, to let him finish, and Arthur wouldn't. And behind them on the rocks, when he looked, Guinevere was crying, and smiling in what looked like gratitude, and coughing out blood and black sludge, and Arthur turned his back on her so that he didn't lose his hold on Merlin as he fought Arthur like a spitting angry cat to get loose. "If either of us bears any of the blame for her death at the end, then it's me. I made the choice."

Merlin shook his head, hair ruffling down to obscure his features as he ducked his face into his arm, away from Arthur. "I could've saved her."

"God help me, Merlin. I adored Guinevere. I loved her with all my heart, but she didn't want you to die for her. I _know_ that. And there was no guarantee. You might have ripped the enchantment out, you might have healed whatever Morgana did to her soul, but her body was broken, and even you've said you're rubbish at healing magic. She was going to die either way. It would have been a waste for you to follow her just for that."

"I can command life and death; it just needs to stay in balance."

Arthur felt his eyes grow hot and sucked moisture into his mouth to dispel the cotton there. "I'll say it again, Merlin: however willing you are, she would not have wanted you to die for her."

"I didn't have to!" Merlin shot up off of the bench and stalked in a tight circle as if looking for something to hit. "Morgana did this – she should have put it right!"

 _Morgana_. Arthur's next breath came shallow and quick despite his best efforts to regulate it. Morgana, laughing. Morgana bleeding out and chanting, like a joke, _Emrys…Emrys…Emrys_ …fingering the tip of the sword protruding from between two ribs, the sword that Merlin had just put there. "Like the questing beast," Arthur realized. The sorceress paying for the life she tried, unnaturally, to take.

Merlin washed up against the bare middle of the room and wobbled there. "Like the questing beast," he agreed. His legs bent a bit before he steadied himself and put his back to Arthur, lost in the stone corner he faced.

Arthur let the sick heat spill over his cheeks and then immediately scrubbed at the slick wetness there, angry and betrayed and… It was his own fault, wasn't it? He remembered coming back out of the water, Merlin splashing and frantic in front of him as he gained the shore first and rushed immediately to Morgana's body, still and lifeless now with Arthur's sword still in her. Water streaming from his clothes, his hair as he screamed at Morgana's face and then broke down into horrible, wrenching sobs while Arthur just stood there, numb. Merlin wailing over Morgana's dead body not because he had to kill her, not because he regretted it the way Arthur had thought at the time, but because his chance to save Guinevere died with Morgana. Arthur should have been terrified and repulsed by the cold calculation of such a thing, playing lives like cards, but looking at Merlin waver on the other side of the room – remembering the sound of him howling at Guinevere's wrapped body the next morning as he realized for a second time that he failed… It wasn't a cold thing that drove Merlin. It may have been a cold thing to do, but the motive for it was not so simple. Fairness…a balance…giving back what you take and paying for your trespasses… It was the oldest justice there was. Like the old religion, it was brutal sometimes, but it wasn't necessarily undeserved. It wasn't unfair.

"I stole the Horn of Cathbhadh."

Arthur looked up, his breathing unsteady, and made a confused sound.

"After we got back, after…"

And then Arthur realized what he was getting at. "After the burial. When we fought, and you disappeared for three days."

Merlin nodded, but all Arthur could see of him was the line of his back in Gaius's warm, re-stitched and altered robes, with a fluff of dark hair in the dim light of the room. "I went to Nemeton. I wanted…" His voice guttered out like a candle in a sudden draft. "I needed to apologize. For letting her die. She deserved to know."

Arthur shook his head and tried to will Merlin to turn around, because the way he was talking implied it went poorly, and Arthur couldn't imagine – he couldn't fathom that Guinevere was the one to put all of this self-loathing into Merlin's head. The Guinevere he knew would have forgiven Merlin before he even managed to get his mouth open. And he was jealous, too, that Merlin had a chance to make amends whereas Arthur didn't think he could have faced her himself, so soon after. "What did she say?"

Merlin's ribcage expanded and Arthur watched him refuse to look back, away from the stones in front of him. "She didn't." He tipped his head up to gaze at the ceiling, and a bit of wan light from the window caught and reflected the sheen on one cheek like frost. "She wasn't there."

Arthur blinked. "Then… Where is she?"

"The Teine Diaga is dark magic," Merlin replied tonelessly. "It consumes the soul to make room for the will of another."

"Merlin, _where is she_?"

"Nowhere." Merlin swayed and let the momentum carry him over to the bed, where he picked up Arthur's crown and absently smoothed away imagined smudges. "The abyss." He paced slowly back to where Arthur now stood, unaware of having moved until he found himself at eye level with Merlin. "It's what the Dochraid said would happen if we failed." He met Arthur's gaze now, unflinching and flat. It was artificial. Merlin raised the crown and placed it back on Arthur's head, shifting it until it sat straight and centered. He then proceeded to tug Arthur's clothes back into place, minor adjustments here and there until he presumable looked regal enough.

Arthur could feel the shock running cold in his veins. He stood perfectly still while Merlin fussed, unable to fully appreciate the irony or the horror of the situation. Merlin moved around him, draping an intricate chain set with the Pendragon colors around his neck to hang in glittering red and gold across his chest, heavy and suffocating. He had never realized their weight before.

"She forgives me."

Arthur blinked away the threat of a wet spill he refused to acknowledge and looked at Merlin in confusion. "What?"

"When I hear her voice," Merlin clarified, his face complicated and pinched. "That's what she says. That she forgives me."

Arthur let his gaze drop to where Merlin's hands shook in a fine, delicate shiver against the gold and jewels draped over Arthur's breast. It was ironic, wasn't it? Merlin's own mind was doing that, tormenting him with her voice, and the most damaging thing it could contrive to give him was forgiveness. Mercy...absolution... They were sharper weapons than anyone gave them credit for.

* * *

 _"We'll find a way to bring her back, Arthur. I promise."_

* * *

~TBC~


	8. Chapter 8

_**The** **Sins of the Father** _

_"I know what you did to my mother."_

 _Arthur fumed, words bitten out past his poorly contained anger and disgust, his breathing heavy and his heart a fleeing rabbit in his chest as he put voice to the realization that had been swirling through his head the whole ride back. "This is what fuels your hatred for those who practice magic. Rather than blame yourself for what you did, you blame them."_

 _"You would believe a sorcerer's lies," Uther refuted, walking toward him with his chin up, arrogant, exactly as Arthur had accused. "Over the word of your own father?" He barely even raised his voice. That bluff, the calculated nonchalance – Arthur knew what that looked like on his father – knew the tell for what it was. "I can only think that Morgause has enchanted you."_

 _Of course, he would go there - his easy way out, his tired old mode of silencing dissent. Enchantment. Sorcery. Anyone who disagreed with him, sorcery. Anyone who challenged him, sorcery. Insist too much, and the pyre waited. Arthur barely allowed him time to finish, pressing ahead with what he had to say because he knew, and this time he was right – he could see it in his father's studied indifference, like a playact. "You hunted her kind like animals! How many hundreds have you condemned to death to ease your guilt?"_

 _Uther raised his hand to gesture pointedly at the air, as if trying to get a simple fact through the mind of a simpleton. "Those who practice magic will stop at nothing to destroy us!"_

 _The same refrain, the same tone, the same fervor he'd shown on that idea since Arthur was old enough to understand the words, and yet they looked like a patina over the truth when Uther spoke them now - a lie repeated so often that it carried a false shine to reflect in . Arthur gave an incredulous shake of his head, his lips curled up in a terrible kind of humor._

 _"I have only done what is necessary to protect this kingdom!"_

 _"You speak of honour," Arthur sneered, "and nobility." His voice rose with his temper, disgusted at the lie, at the transparency of it, at his own father trying to sell him a slaughter as if it were just, at himself for falling prey to it so easily. And for what? The hope of earning the sin of his father's pride? "You're nothing but a hypocrite and a liar!"_

 _Finally, Uther's cool snapped. "I am your king, and your father." He took a breath full of grit teeth and a flash of temper that spoke more of fear than anger, now that Arthur thought to look. "You will show me some respect!"_

 _Arthur nodded once, a faint movement, his mouth shut tight as he looked at his father and reviewed a lifetime of looking up to a man who would murder the innocent to burn off his own shame. He felt his sinuses heat and fill, but he couldn't allow himself the weakness. After all, his father had taught him that well - never be weak. Never falter in your convictions. Never give clemency, lest everyone take you for a fool. All of his muscles shivering and taught, Arthur swallowed and stepped forward, forcing his mouth into a hard line even as he knew that his eyes would betray his hurt. He clenched his jaw and wrenched off his gauntlet as the expression on his father's face went from brewing storm to disbelief. As if, for just a moment, he didn't recognize his own son coming forward. The gauntlet slid slightly on the flagstones as Arthur tossed it between them the same way he might toss away something foul that he'd scraped off of his armor._

 _Uther demanded softly, "Have you lost your mind?"_

 _"Pick it up."_

 _"Arthur, I implore you, think about what you're doing." He sounded like a statesman again, putting on his council airs and the voice he used from his throne, and it was inappropriate here – a transparent attempt to regain control. To save face. A challenge or a bluff, or both. He wasn't regal here._

 _"Pick," Arthur snarled, his voice fighting to lose its quiet, level edge, "it up."_

 _Uther looked perfectly reasonable, perfectly sane as he replied, "I will not fight you." But he swallowed and blinked and drew his head back at the wrong time, so he was more shaken than he wanted Arthur to know._

 _Arthur grimaced and drew his sword, the squeal of metal overloud in the conspicuous silence of the room. Arthur paced forward as he spoke, voice low and rough like a mill wheel. "If you choose not to defend yourself, I will strike you down where you stand."_

 _"You are my son. You will not strike an unarmed man." But Uther looked at him with uncertainty hiding poorly in the stillness of his face, his breath faint as he watched his son's regard sour right in front of him._

 _Arthur didn't have to respond as he did, but he wanted to. There was a point to make, and oh...he wanted to hurt this man for daring to be his father – for posing as an honorable man. For making Arthur think that he was a good king, that he was wise, that he was an example to model himself after. For being...a disappointment. "I no longer think of myself as your son."_

 _Uther merely looked at him and raised his chin as if it meant nothing to him to be disavowed. "Then strike me down."_

Dinner was a small disaster, to say the least.

It seemed disrespectful, somehow, to make merry so soon after his conversation with Merlin in his chambers, and perverse to watch Merlin carry on as if it had never happened. ( _She forgives me_. Like absolution were a curse.) It also overlaid the fact that they were celebrating Gaius's passing as much as Merlin's ascension, while some of them secretly pondered and worried about magic and nobility and bloodlines, and Arthur's furious naming of a servant as heir to the throne, gnawing over all of the complications of it like a dog at a meaty bone, and the threat of it all getting out, and maybe getting drunk and raucous wasn't the best way to go about this.

It felt like they all had to be cheerful, though – had to put on court faces and offer the expected spectacle and celebration. But it was still all wrong, to Arthur's mind, and he felt as if a schism had split him open inside, apart in halves so that he could watch himself play at being the magnanimous king while the more important part of him curled into a ball in a corner and raged even as he wept at the thought that Guinevere wouldn't ever know peace beyond the veil. There was no Guinevere at all anymore. And Arthur…he hadn't done that to her, no, but he hadn't stopped it happening either. He hadn't protected her. (He hadn't even _known_ and Merlin took over a year to tell him what it meant that she died like that, there, that she _ceased_ , as if maybe he never intended to tell him at all.) He wondered if Morgana were happy now, to have destroyed just one of them so thoroughly. Did she sit beyond the veil and grieve for the friend she wronged? Or did she get the peace and tranquility that Guinevere could never have? It was a travesty of divine justice either way, Arthur thought bitterly. He should be more surprised to find the old religion so fickle, and yet what else had it ever been for him? Or for Merlin? The old religion took, and took, and took in the name of balance, and yet it never actually felt fair.

Arthur gave the room a forced grin, his sociability precarious after too much good wine overlaying sharp tension, and watched the spectacle of Merlin trying to teach Gwaine to juggle apples while the rest of the diners roared with laughter. It was a small gathering, only a handful of the knights who liked Merlin best – Gwaine and Percival, of course, Leon and a random half dozen others – plus two of the senior squires, the heads of the midwives order, and the interim physician…dammit…Hubbly? Harbot? Whatever; he kept frowning whenever someone topped off Merlin's glass. Leon's somewhat senile father had also popped up, oddly enough, though none of them were sure how he found his way there from Leon's family quarters all by himself, uninjured and sort of properly dressed. It was all topped off by a smattering of servants who were participating as much as serving the meal, and it appeared that a number of stable boys were milling around too, just for fun. Arthur had no idea where half of the diners had come from; he could swear he'd only talked to maybe four people that afternoon about celebrating their new physician. At least the crowd covered for the awkwardness that Arthur, at least, couldn't shake.

Arthur tried not to brood too much in the midst of a congratulatory dinner, mostly because Merlin deserved a celebration for his accomplishments, and Arthur had already basically ruined it by forcing an untimely confidence beforehand. Among other things. He watched Merlin duck his head to adjust his grip on a few pears, his expression fading flat in that moment when no one was looking before he spread his mouth wide in a grin that bled sick at the edges. He glanced at Arthur, voices all around them turning to a dull buzz in the background like wasps. Merlin's mask faltered, just for a heartbeat, before he managed to laugh at something a groomsman said and avoid being caught out for the false cheer on his face.

And Arthur was drunk. Too drunk to be thinking deep thoughts; he'd get himself into all sorts of trouble if he started ruminating now. Instead of pondering the unusual social logistics of the dinner, Arthur let his teeth show and his mouth crease upwards as he called, "Gwaine, he's cheating!"

Gwaine fumbled a few apples, lost one under the table, and then scowled at Arthur. "How is he cheating? I'm watching him!"

"Same as the dice," Arthur imparted sagely, twiddling his fingers in what he hoped was a passable impression of _making secret magics._

After blinking a few times, Gwaine rounded and lobbed an apple at Merlin's laughing face. "You giant wanker!"

Merlin tumbled back into his chair, apple clutched to his stomach, nearly wheezing with genuine mirth this time, his face edged all around in pink from the freely flowing wine. He really was pants at drinking; he'd had what, one cup? One everlasting cup, anyway, that he never managed to finish. Arthur frowned at the collection of ownerless, half-filled wine goblets strewn all over the table, but there was no telling who belonged to which, and how much any of them had actually imbibed. At least Merlin wasn't moping, or not entirely. Arthur had thought he might, at the beginning of the meal. Everything about the way Merlin avoided looking at Arthur or saying the wrong thing, picking at his food and resisting the attempts of their fellow diners to bring him into some semblance of cheer was awkward at first. Like being there, at the table rather than serving it, was some special kind of torture. Or maybe he just really had no idea as to proper court dining etiquette, and was afraid he'd embarrass either Arthur or himself.

Gwaine thumped down into his own chair, pointed another pitifully bruised apple at Merlin's nose, and said, "You owe me a lot of money, my friend."

Arthur winced as Gwaine went to cuff Merlin about the head, but managed to refrain from making a scene about it. For his part, Merlin merely knocked his arm aside and shoved him, not that Gwaine budged much. More to distract himself than for any better reason, Arthur grabbed a full goblet, tried to stand, and then sort of lurched to his feet on the second attempt. A half dozen hands were already out, trying to steady him, and he had to let them, because, "I have had a _lot_ of wine."

The knights roared with laughter, and Arthur grinned at them, not at all regal about it.

Gwaine raised his wine too and yelled, "Speech!"

"Ay, speech!"

Arthur finally stopped wobbling and huffed, "I'm getting to it! You're a pack of boors."

"Nah," Leon called. "Bors isn't here!"

And of course, Gwaine, added, "Because he's a _bore_ ."

"Boor!"

"Boring Bors!"

"Oh my god." Arthur sagged toward the tabletop and then forced himself to stop giggling. "No, speech! I'm giving a speech. Hush!"

There was a round of very forceful shushing, and Merlin just sat there in the middle of it, his face splotchy pink all over from drinking and finally getting around to laughing.

Arthur nodded, looked at his wine, blinked around the attentive (blurry) table of guests and servants, and then raised his goblet. "To Merlin!"

"Merlin!"

"The worst manservant I've ever had!"

Most of the group started to repeat the cheer, and then petered out halfway through, until Merlin shouted, "And proud of it!" And everyone roared another wordless, drunken cheer to that, sloshing wine around as they did so.

Arthur shook himself and some of the fuzz in his head receded. He wondered what happened to all of the water. Was no one serving water tonight? Merlin was just looking at him, clearly sopping drunk and propped up against Gwaine sitting next to him. Sobriety fell over Arthur like ice water as he met that open, bleary gaze. More grave than he meant to be, Arthur added, "To the most loyal man I've ever met." He staggered because the ground moved under him, but only briefly, and addressed his comments right at Merlin. "You are the only man I know who never seeks recognition for the great deeds he does. It is an incredible virtue. Every knight in this room could take lessons in humility from you."

Merlin's eyes waxed round at that and he straightened abruptly, only saved from overbalancing by George appearing behind him as if he'd been hiding between pockets of air beside the chair, invisible. "Oh, don't you dare knight me."

Just to get a rise, Arthur gave him a conspiring grin. "I'm your king, Merlin. You can't stop me knighting you."

"You're a clopple," Merlin countered, and then squinched his face up. "…clopple... Nevermind – stop giving me titles! I've nowhere to put them."

Arthur's chest vibrated until he realized he was giggling silently, and he cleared his throat. "Fine, no more titles. Clotpole." He hefted his wine up again, which prompted everyone else to do the same, which made a mess due to most of them being way too unsteady for that. Merlin tried to do the same but George stole his wine and shoved a polished horn cup into his hand, and there – that was where the water went! George had it all. No matter; Arthur liked wine too. With a great deal of effort, Arthur gravely raised his goblet and schooled his features into solemnity. His voice hoarse at the effort, he toasted, "And to Gaius, who could not be here to share this happy day."

The gathering hushed itself and Merlin dropped his gaze to the table. Arthur watched him swallow down a hiccup that could have been either grief or gorge, or both.

It was Gwaine who rescued them all from the maudlin moment. "He taught you to make the hangover remedy, right?"

Merlin blinked and wobbled his head back up to squint at Gwaine. "Not that you'll be getting any."

Gwaine's teeth flashed and he collared Merlin in the crook of his arm before toasting, "To our new Court Physician!"

Everybody cheered in a rush of sound and Arthur sank quickly down into his seat because that was about all the standing his legs could take. He drained his cup in almost-unison with everyone else and sagged back against the seat to smile out at the happy people congratulating Merlin. They were just cheering his appointment, but Arthur imagined they were cheering other things too. Defeating powerful sorcerers and dragons, and saving Arthur, and putting swords in stones with made up stories to make sure a king had as much faith in himself as Merlin had in a man who ruled sometimes unjustly from his father's shadow. The mirth melted from Arthur's face like wax on a hot metal surface; he could feel it slough off like so much skin from a snake. Arthur leaned forward to rest his chin sloppily on a hand propped beside his plate, pensive, and watched George play musical goblets so that Merlin only managed to get his hands on water now that the toasts were done. Herblebee was helping with that too. Harbley. Huffley. Whatever – town physician man. With the mole Gwaine didn't trust. Because it was a shifty mole, as moles often were.

Random servants circled around them in a gradual whirl, removing picked-over dishes and refilling wine, mopping up spills and stealing bites of food here and there. The easy atmosphere eventually soothed Arthur back into a languid mood. Or maybe the wine did that; he really wasn't sure. But he felt okay at the moment. Warm. It was a good feast, just big enough to be pleasant if he weren't so pensive. Arthur's mind sort of smeared along the inside of his skull as he watched everyone. He dropped his cheek into his palm and the room blurred from all of the wine he had sucked down. Fortifying wine. He might need more of that, actually. Arthur blinked at a goblet and fumbled at it before giving up. He might have been fortified enough already.

A lull broke through the hum of celebration, and Merlin could be heard hiccupping a few times. When Arthur looked over, he met sparkling eyes and a dopey grin. Considering how awkward and pinched Merlin had been at the start of the meal, Arthur was glad to see that. He hadn't been sure that Merlin would loosen up at all that evening, but there he was, weaving on his chair with a giant smile plastered all over his scruffy face, and that beard fuzz really did look good on him. Arthur succeeding in grasping a goblet and gulped down a sip of warm wine, eyes wandering over the rest of the gathering to where Guinevere had used to stand, next to the pillar and ready with the wine or water jug to refill Morgana's or Uther's goblets at their formal suppers. He imagined her smiling over there, dressed in blue this time, her white apron embroidered with flowers in stitching that flowed colorful and easy in vibrant threads across the linen. Arthur felt his face soften, and when one side of her mouth curled up in a covert, shared happiness, Arthur waggled his fingers at her – at the beautiful maid who was not yet his.

 _I forgive you._

Arthur jumped as Merlin knocked his ridiculous knees into the table leg and collapsed on the empty chair beside him. He gathered his wits with a sniff and wobbled upright in time for Merlin to squint at him and demand, "Who are you waving at?"

The din of merriment crashed back down over his head and Arthur started slightly at the volume of it. "Nobody. Thinking of Guinevere. She used to stand there."

Merlin glanced down, but he was still smiling slightly as he pointed out, "She used to stand in lots of places. Should I expect you to start waving at all of them too? I know a nice wash bin she liked. You could tell it…poems." And then he dissolved into giggles. If his drunkenness weren't obvious enough from the fact that he had managed to tease Arthur about Guinevere without really noticing the sharp edge of pain to it, then the way he basically poured himself deeper into the chair definitely gave it away.

Arthur shoved him a bit so that he wouldn't fall out of said chair, and Merlin ended up with his head down on the table, cushioned on his arms. He snorted every few seconds, still laughing for no good reason even if there was a bit too much wet to it, and Arthur couldn't help chuckling along with him; it was contagious. A quick survey of the room showed everyone trying to pick themselves up in preparation for leaving, and Arthur waved them away to let them know they didn't have to wait for him to go first, as protocol would normally demand.

At some point, Arthur lost the thread of what was going on, and when he looked beside himself again, Merlin was smiling at him all fuzzy-eyed and limpid with the side of his face mooshed into the back of one hand. Arthur tipped his head all the way to the side so that Merlin wasn't horizontal anymore and said, "She _would_ be proud of you. I have to say it."

Merlin merely offered a languid blink and said, "Of you too," before the smile faded. "I miss her." He looked sleepy and sad now, eyes heavy as he watched Arthur back. "She's supposed to be here."

Arthur's face went soft; he could feel it, like cotton wool replacing his skin. "Are you going to pass out drunk?"

"Mmm." Merlin hummed for a while longer, tuneless with his eyes closed. "Not sleeping."

Arthur reached over and swiped at a little trickling line of water travelling along the crease of Merlin's nose. Maybe sweat. Probably not though. Arthur murmured, too soft to hear above the din, "S'alright. Not on your head."

Various servants appeared as if by magic to start chivvying their masters away, and Arthur watched a woman he had never seen before approach Gwaine. From the look of recognition that lit Gwaine's face, however, this was a welcome development as he called, "Eira! There's my lass."

It had just occurred to Arthur that Gwaine was sweet on this girl, possibly with long term intentions, if anyone could believe that, when Merlin's head whipped up, looking as if he'd stepped in a snare. His eyes went hard as he focused on the woman now assisting Gwaine into his cloak, which Gwaine seemed to be playing up since Arthur knew that he was only barely tipsy. Merlin coughed a bit of phlegm out of his throat, and then flared his nostrils. "Traitor."

Arthur gawped at the sudden bristling in the man sitting next to him, and then over to Gwaine in time for the knight to snort. He clearly thought that Merlin was teasing him, because he preened and quipped back, "Aww, Merls. If I'd known you were interested – "

"She's a _traitor_!" Merlin interrupted, pointing a drunken finger unsteadily at Eira's shocked face. "You – you got him killed!"

"Um." Arthur stood up mostly to head off Merlin when he also stood.

Gwaine seemed taken aback, but he wasn't given to sudden tempers, and he knew Merlin well enough to assume that what looked like hostility might be something else. "Easy there, Merlin. Eira's a friend of mine."

"No, she's not." Merlin tripped over his own feet and Arthur caught his arm when he missed reaching for the table top to stop him from falling all over the floor or smashing his face into the arm of a chair. "She's working for Morgana – she gave you away. Percival brought your body back, they tortured you to find the army – "

"Merlin." Arthur tried both to be stern, and to downplay whatever was going on to the other knights and servants now arrayed in a frozen tableau about the hall. "Does Gwaine look dead to you?"

Merlin blinked, started, and then seemed to realize what he was doing. He went mostly still and settled his weight back onto his own unreliable feet. On the other side of the table, Percival eyed the woman Gwaine was now shielding, both of them holding the hilts of their swords with more than casual intent, though no one drew.

Arthur swallowed down his own drunkenness to push Merlin back a few steps and get in front of him. "Try to make some sense," he murmured. "Morgana is dead. No one is working for her, and Gwaine was not killed – he's right there."

"But the army…" Merlin's eyes flickered about unseeing for a moment, as if he were actually looking at an army. "She'll find…she found you. And she has Saxons, and Mordred – "

"Is also dead." Arthur grasped his forearm and tried to turn him around to where George now stood concerned, though he hid it well. "And the army hasn't been assembled in over a year."

"Mordred killed you." Merlin allowed himself to be steered away from the table, and Arthur blocked his attempts to look back at a now worried Gwaine. "He stabbed you. It was magic, the blade – Morgana has a dragon. They forged it with the breath and it killed you. And you didn't have the armor right, he got through the plate. I was late."

Arthur pushed him through the servant's door to stop any more talk of magic and George got hold of him after that, guiding him into the corridor with that subtle force that servants seemed so good at using unobtrusively against their masters. "I'm not dead either, Merlin. Look at me." He held out his hands for inspection. "Do I look like I've been stabbed?"

Merlin looked as invited, but Arthur could swear that he wasn't seeing the man in front of him. "You're in the lake."

Arthur swallowed convulsively, his back muscles tightening with a shiver as if someone had walked over his grave. "No," he breathed, ignoring the hollow lilt to Merlin's voice. "No, I'm right here. In Camelot."

Finally, Merlin ticked, and it seemed like he came back to himself in a cold rush with a sharp inhale. He met Arthur's eyes, started to say something, and then shook himself. "I don't…"

George took the opportunity to step in then. "You have had too much wine, my lord." At Merlin's fuzzy look for the title, George amended, "Merlin. Sir. A spot of sleep will help."

"Yes." Merlin's brows drew down and he glanced around as if only just noticing the corridor.

When he didn't seem inclined to move any farther, however, George nudged at him. "This way, sir. The wine was very strong tonight."

Arthur watched Merlin stumble in the direction George indicated and let out a breath he hadn't meant to hold. It was true; the wine was strong. Even Arthur could feel that much, and he had been careful…ish. Leave it to Merlin to be a sloppy, embarrassing drunk. Except...well, he wasn't. Was he? Arthur had never actually seen him this far into his cups before.

Once the pair disappeared into a stairwell, Arthur closed his eyes momentarily, and then turned back to the king's dining hall. He found most everyone gone, which was considerate of them, except that Gwaine remained standing behind his vacated chair, which Eira now occupied. She appeared pale, her eyes downcast. Leon also stood nearby, and Leon's father sat in a chair near a pillar, rocking side-to-side and conversing with himself, an oblivious smile on his face.

Arthur sighed and made his way over to Gwaine and his lady. "I apologize. Merlin can't hold his wine at all. I'll have a word with George about minding him better in future."

The girl failed to rise to that, and Arthur glanced uncertainly at the stony set of Gwaine's face. He appeared to swallow past the first thing that came to mind, and gripped Eira's shoulder with more force than Arthur thought appropriate for a man courting a young woman. "Tell him what you told me."

Arthur frowned at Gwaine, and then looked down at Eira. It hadn't occurred to Arthur to feel any sort of dread before. Merlin was clearly just very confused for a moment. Wasn't he? "Go on, then."

Eira nodded, wrung her hands, and then girded herself as she met Arthur's gaze. "He's not entirely wrong. Master Merlin. I…did. I considered… She approached me, and I agreed to…spy for her."

Leon moved closer to Arthur, his stance protective.

Arthur's chest grew cold, and he backed up until he could sit in a discarded chair himself. "For Morgana?"

"Yes, sire." It was barely a whisper, but clear in spite of that. She wasn't trying to obscure her answer when she ducked her head; she was only ashamed of it. "I was to gain Sir Gwaine's attentions, and use him to get information for her about the armies."

Gwaine looked away.

Arthur ground his teeth briefly. "And did you? Send her information?"

Eira shook her head, quick to deny it. "There wasn't time, sire. She died before I could contrive to meet him. And I saw…we all saw what she did to the queen. It was…" She sniffed to clear the congestion from her nose and looked up again. "I thought that it was a just fight, for freedom and good magics, and that it excused her cruelty – that she had a right to vengeance. But then I saw you on your return journey with the queen's body. You passed through our village and I've... Forgive me, sire, but I've never seen a man so..." She paused and tried to rearrange her skirts because saying it out loud, that the king had been nearly broken in his grief, wasn't proper. "And I realized that if she would do that to a man she called brother, and to a woman who had been loyal to her – who she _still_ called friend…" Eira ticked her head to one side in an aborted negation of the act she described. "It was perverse. And she was mad. And if that much was wrong, then how much else about her quest was wrong? I did not yet know that Morgana was dead when I decided not to follow her. I expected to be killed for it, but no one ever came for me."

"I see." Arthur glanced up but Gwaine feigned disinterest in the both of them. "And yet, you still seduced Sir Gwaine."

"Unintentionally," Eira admitted. She shook her head and grimaced at her hands again. "I didn't expect to actually meet him. Or to like him." She glanced at the hand that Gwaine had clenched on the hilt of his sword, knuckles pale from the force of his grip less than a foot from her face, the only outward sign he gave of how he felt to hear this.

Unexpectedly, Gwaine said, "He's a seer. Isn't he? Like his uncle? That's how he knew about her."

Arthur shook his head, but in truth, he didn't know. He certainly hadn't thought so before now. "He's not been well lately."

His voice grinding like an ill-fit wagon wheel, Gwaine pointed out, "He's not been wrong lately, either."

Arthur gave that the bare recognition that it deserved, and then shifted his gaze to Eira. "What about her?" he asked Gwaine. "Do you want to vouch for her?"

Gwaine looked down, but couldn't hold the woman's gaze when she tipped her head up to meet his. "I haven't decided yet."

For her part, Eira said nothing, and seemed resigned to receiving judgement now for crimes she had once meant to carry through. Arthur watched her be still in front of him, and wondered at Merlin trying to manipulate Arthur into a decision that would see the wrath of a goddess come down on a man who had not yet betrayed them. Because he had finally admitted to why he would want Mordred dead, hadn't he? To stop him killing Arthur someday with a magic blade forged by Morgana's dragon fire. A vision that had never come to pass; Mordred died a loyal knight at the last. But did the murky potential future really justify his death? Or was letting him go before his turning actually a mercy? Could such a thing be called a gift? To Eira, Arthur said, "Merlin called you a traitor, and you've admitted as much yourself. Why should I believe that you wouldn't do it again, given the chance? Ally with our enemies?"

"Because Morgana's war was wrong." Eira twisted her fingers, but it seemed a practiced affectation. Disingenuous, as if she were accustomed to making herself seem meek in order to reach her own ends. But perhaps that was not unusual for some women to posture thus, any more than puffing chests and swaggering about with swords was not unusual for a man to feign virility.

"And what of the next war?" Arthur demanded. "Will that one also be wrong, if you stand on the other side?"

Eira replied, "I cannot say what the next war will be."

Arthur cocked his head. He didn't address it further, though; there seemed little point now. "You will remain under guard until further notice. Gwaine may continue to pay you court, as he likes, but you will be confined to… Where do you live, exactly?"

Gwaine sneered, and then forced his face smooth again. "She lives with me, sire. In my rooms." Before Arthur could suggest some alternative, Gwaine added, "I won't force her out. There are plenty of cots in the barracks I can use."

Arthur nodded, and didn't bother mentioning the impropriety of those living arrangements, unwed as they both were. It didn't matter, after all; Gwaine had just paid for it. "Very well, then." He craned his neck around and then had to call for guards since there were none nearby. Before relegating Eira to the armed escort, Arthur told her, "I hope you remember that Sir Gwaine did not have to deal with you so graciously. He could have had you put out of the city altogether, and right now, he is the only reason I am allowing you to remain, pending judgement."

"I know, sire. And I am grateful to Gwaine – "

"Save it," Gwaine muttered, stepping away from her at last. He put his back to her as she was led out. An honorable knight, yes, but also a man scorned and made to love on half a lie. After a brief silent exchange with Arthur, Leon followed them.

They were alone for what felt like a long time amidst the residue of a small, ruined feast with Leon's mostly senile father harmlessly making pleased noises in the corner. Arthur scrubbed his hands over his face with a heavy sigh and fished a nearly full goblet out from the sea of empty ones. "Here." He held it out to Gwaine, dangling from between thumb and forefinger.

Gwaine turned to find the wine right in front of him, his face stone sober and closed. He took it and stared at the liquid inside for a moment. "It's tempting," he finally said. "A year ago, I'd have gone to the tavern and just stayed the night there. Found a nice loose barmaid. Or man."

Arthur's brows went up of their own accord. "Are you turning down the king's own wine?"

"She doesn't like me drunk." Gwaine started to take a sip, stopped himself, and then curled his lip as he set it down with a sharp enough clink to splatter some of the wine over the rim of the goblet. "Fuck." He glared at his fingers and then shook them before wiping them on his pantleg. "I need to…" He flapped his hand around and then settled on, "…do something."

Arthur let him leave without saying anything more, which was just as well since Gwaine merely walked out after that, his hands held up to deflect the servant who nearly ran into him on the way past. Arthur waved the boy on his way when he tried to bow without spilling his armful of linen, and picked up the perfectly good goblet of wine that Gwaine had discarded. As he drained it, he thought of Mordred grinning as they sparred, riding backwards on his horse at the older knights' pranks, and then stepping in front of a poison spear. He thought of the boy, thin and pale and fae, huddled small and silent in a cell waiting to die for another man's self-loathing crusade. Then he thought about Merlin repeatedly insisting that Mordred should not be trusted, and finally damning his own kind to make Arthur choose the path that he believed would see Mordred dead. The last thought that came to him though was of standing in a siege tunnel, shaking a locked grate, and drawing his sword as he realized Merlin might not be coming to help them escape. As if he had known, even then, and struggled with the imagined need to let a child die to save them all.

Some part of Arthur took comfort from knowing that at least then, when they'd all been much younger men, Merlin hadn't been able to do it. The ruthless part of him had come later, which meant that it was learned, and somewhere buried beneath it was a better man. Not the sorcerer or the attempted liar, but the Merlin that Arthur had always thought he knew. The mouthy young man who needed feeding up, who called Arthur a bully, who challenged him to actually be the prince he claimed to be, and then looked at him like he hung the stars.

Arthur sighed and set the empty goblet aside, where it wobbled and then tipped over. He felt far too sober for his own good. Leon's father stood up and Arthur had to do so as well, to keep him from wandering off. Last time someone lost track of him, it took the entire citadel three days to locate him sleeping with a nest of ducks at the mill pond. "My lord Leundugrance," Arthur called, arresting the man's shuffling journey to the doors. "Allow me to escort you back to your chambers."

 _Arthur struck. The full force of his rage and his disillusionment, his disgust, his...his heartbreak fueled the strength behind his blade but it was a sloppy maneuver because of what drove it, a cloud of fetid emotion, and Uther easily raised a hidden blade to block it. They stared at each other past the cross of metal and Arthur fought the shame at his gullibility and how it made him want to curl into his absent mother's lap and cry as he never had, and never could. Because she was dead._

 _Uther blinked and huffed out a breath, his eyes and his blade both dropping far too soon for a man in combat. He stepped back, facing the shaking point of Arthur's sword and told Arthur, sad and soft, "I don't want to fight you." He kept moving backwards, sword and eyes lowered to show his submission._

 _Arthur shifted his grip and swung his sword in an arc to reset his stance. In front of him, his father started and lifted his own blade in aborted defense, wary and visibly trying to reconcile this adversary with the face it wore. Arthur stepped forward, stalking his retreating father down the length of the table, and then swung his sword underhand at Uther's flank. The ring of impact only lasted a moment, swords arcing and moving to clash again and again and again, and Arthur bared his teeth because damn him – Uther was barely trying. He was blocking Arthur's blows as if Arthur were a child on the training ground fussing about with a blunt blade. He was humoring a tantrum, he was –_

 _"Arthur, stop this!" Uther grunted with exertion and seemed to realize that he needed to defend himself properly – this was not in jest. It was not half-hearted._

 _Arthur leapt back as Uther's blade arced for his throat, and he saw the disbelief in his father's face, the dawn of horror that he had nearly killed his son, and might have to do more than nearly that in the next moments. Arthur leveled his sword up again, a circling stance, and focused. As Uther fluttered his eyelids, perhaps in an effort to banish the sight before him, Arthur rose from his half crouch and advanced. This was an opponent like any other. This was a bad man who threatened the peace of Camelot. This was the man responsible for the murder of Arthur's mother and a lifetime of lies. A traitor. Just a traitor to put down._

 _The clash of metal echoed in the small space, along with Uther's growls of desperate effort, his teeth grit, determined. Arthur wondered if he weren't supposed to look mad, because he just looked the way Uther always did when angry or threatened: teeth showing, limbs tense, footwork lacking. Shouldn't he look like a madman? Desperate like a betrayer caught? Why did he still just look like Arthur's father?_

Arthur stared into what remained of the hearth fire, his chin bent awkwardly to his chest, exhausted enough that he could feel how bruised his eyes were, puffy and dry and no doubt dull as the light that the waning embers cast out into his bedchamber. When had it become so difficult to sleep alone? Arthur took a deep breath and rolled his head to one side where he caught it in his hand, elbow propped on the arm of his chair. After a moment of staring blankly into the shadows near the bed, Arthur shook his head and climbed to his feet, a laborious effort more suited to scaling a steep mountain track. The royal obstacles of his life certainly felt insurmountable at times.

There was a plate of cheese and fruit sitting on the sideboard, and a little basket of bread covered in a cloth next to that. Perhaps George was finally learning moderation. It was a bit hateful, really. If things were normal – if things were back to being the way they should be – Merlin would have appeared not with food but with an irritated sigh to bully him into his nightclothes. He would scold Arthur for drowsing in the chair like this, as he always did, and Arthur would grouse and grumble his way to sleep, happy and warm inside because someone cared enough to bother. Merlin had barely been able to walk straight when Arthur last saw him, though. He was probably passed out cold in his own chambers, snoring his way to a glorious hangover. It was a wonder that Arthur had ever given credit to Merlin disappearing into the tavern when he went missing, considering how completely incapable he was at holding his wine or ale.

After pulling himself out of his slept-in clothes and shuffling into simple breeches and a tunic, Arthur pulled a warmer jacket on and filled its pockets with the food to nibble on later. It reminded him of running out of the nursery as a boy, his pockets filled with "supplies" so that he could survive the day running about in the fields with sticks to fight straw bandits. Morgana had come with him sometimes too, taller than him and similarly attired. She hadn't found Guinevere yet, back then. Just Arthur. And Arthur hadn't found anyone at all until Leon started training him with a sword, and then Guinevere had followed one day, straight out of Leon's household, barely a maid herself. Arthur hadn't even glanced at her, really. Not until Merlin basically turned him upside down and shook him out by the ankles and somehow made him see her, as if he were a magnifying lens to focus Arthur's sight on all of the tiny hidden things standing right in front of him.

Arthur stumbled out into the courtyard with less kingly grace than he really wanted to admit. There were a few people about, mostly servants relighting the torches and lamps for the night watch. Evidently, it was earlier than Arthur realized if the third watch was only just starting. He ambled through the courtyard gate and down the cobbled path to the lower town, picking bits of cheese out of his pocket to chew as he walked. It was strange, moving through the city unrecognized for once. There was a time it seemed that Arthur would never be able to escape the confines of his own face, and yet here he was, alone in the street, unmolested and barely able to appreciate the fact. The guards didn't even stop him, though curfew must be coming up soon.

It was only after Arthur passed the public well pump that he realized he was unwittingly dogging someone's footsteps. Some part of him recognized Merlin on sight, clumsy stealth and stumbling stride, tripping over his own feet in the streets. Arthur smiled because it was so normal, so Merlin of him, but a sort of prescience had him holding his tongue. He wanted to see what Merlin was doing. Arthur didn't suspect him of subversion because Merlin was good to his core, no matter how often Arthur knew he had killed or worse. It was more curiosity, really.

After a few streets, it became apparent that Merlin was still somewhat drunk, and Arthur almost broke into a jog to go retrieve him. Merlin didn't seem completely separated from his wits, though. He was coming from the general direction of the Rising Sun, perhaps courtesy of Gwaine dragging him out after the awful end to dinner. Some things never really changed. It wouldn't surprise Arthur to learn that Gwaine succumbed to his own darker impulses after all, drank himself silly, and forgot that he was supposed to also mind his hopelessly inebriated friend. Because Merlin had been _pissed_ when he left the dining hall, and Gwaine really shouldn't have taken him out for even more drinking. It was irresponsible. But Gwaine had been upset, and Merlin was always a sucker for a friend in need of company or cheering, and considering that he did seem steadier than when he'd left the dinner, maybe he hadn't partaken of more. Arthur shook his head and picked up the pace. The last thing he wanted was for a tipsy Merlin to wander into a culvert or something equally stupid and break his ankle, or his neck. He would have to warn George to mind him better, because Merlin wandered about after dark quite a lot, and he shouldn't.

It became obvious after a bit that Merlin was headed out of the city. He slipped through the main portcullis after making a magical commotion somewhere off to one side, moat water roiling and splashing as if an intruder were making a very poor attempt to cross it. Arthur took advantage of the same distraction, rushed over the bridge and down into the shadow of the battlements. He found himself picking his way along a narrow track in the forest, headed out to a clearing down below the battlement walls and far enough out that the watchmen in the towers wouldn't even be able to see a dragon tearing about in the moonless night, if it tore quietly enough.

Eventually, Arthur reached the edge of the clearing, just able to make out the shadow of Merlin's form in the short grasses where various livestock grazed every day to keep it cleared. He waited for a while, leaning sleepily against a tree while Merlin just stood there. Was it a magic thing, maybe? Arthur didn't know how the elemental kind worked; maybe this was some kind of meditation or rest? But no. Just as Arthur grew bored at the nothing happening in front of him, Merlin raised his head up and roared in a voice that Arthur had only heard once before, grating and deep like a grind of rocks, to spit guttural foreign syllables at the sky. The forest went silent all around, and Arthur stood there terrified as he realized what Merlin had called up, invisible against the black starry sky other than a rising wind that eventually resolved into the rhythm of leathery wings.

Arthur ducked as it soared over the treetops and stirred dust, leaves and debris in its wake, praying he wouldn't sneeze or choke, his arm crossed over his face to keep his airway clear. The dragon arced above them, light and nearly silent on massive wings and perhaps a cushion of magic as it banked and dropped to the ground hard enough that Merlin staggered back a step before righting himself. Arthur didn't dare move. Dragons, predators that they were, noticed movement before anything else, and Arthur didn't even crouch to conceal himself, trusting in the trees at his back to shield him from sight in the dark.

"Young warlock."

Arthur started and dropped like a stone behind a copse of bushes. Luckily, the dragon seemed to take no notice of him as it…smiled? Smiled at Merlin, terrifying teeth all in a row like pikes to impale people on. If he didn't already know that Merlin was a dragonlord, Arthur would be screaming at him to run, the damn idiot. As it was, he stayed still, barely breathing, his eyes wide and an overripe pear squishing juice and mash through the hip pocket of his trousers where he had fallen onto it.

"I was sorry to hear of your loss."

Merlin considered the great scaled beast for just a heartbeat, and then said, "You once called Gaius a traitor."

"And that he was," the dragon agreed, as if they weren't discussing anything truly painful. "But he was important to you, and you are my kin. I would rather not see you hurt."

"Mm." Merlin looked down at the claws anchored into a furrow of mud near his own boots, and then he met the eye that the dragon lowered to be at a level with him. "You know what I realized today?" He spoke more slowly than normal, careful with his tongue to make the right syllables come out. "No one ever called me Emrys until I met you."

The dragon blinked and peeled its lips back down to cover its teeth.

"Did you make it all up?"

The dragon's massive head straightened to look at Merlin head on. "I would never mislead you, young warlock."

Merlin scoffed. "Right. You know, I never lied to you. I never kept things from you."

"You were not ready to hear some truths."

"What truths?!" Merlin shouted. "That I am your replacement Emrys?"

The dragon fluffed up its scales and shuffled closer on its belly to insist sharply, "You are not a replacement. You are my kin." It considered a moment, snuffed the air – inhaling a few hapless moths in the process, which the dragon then snorted back out in pieces – and divined, "And you are drunk."

Merlin ignored that last and accused, "You have never given me a straight answer about anything." Arthur wished he could see better, that the dragon's bulk weren't obscuring Merlin's outline so well in the dark. "I trusted you, even when you were being enigmatic, but you weren't ever trying to help me, were you? You were just grooming me to take his place, for your stupid destiny."

The dragon tilted its head and then admitted, "Grooming you, yes. For what you are destined to become. But I did not lie. You are Emrys."

"And Myrddin? Uther's _nephew_ – was he Emrys too?"

"Evidently not," the dragon sassed back, his tone irritated and cutting. "Since he is dead."

"But you knew who he was – my mother's uncle."

The dragon considered Merlin for a moment, a skinny stick man dwarfed in its shadow, and finally admitted, "Yes."

"And you thought it was him, didn't you?"

"Many thought that at the time," the dragon replied, its voice a rumble like a hillside sliding gently south in a rainstorm.

"And you didn't think to tell me that?"

"It would have confused you. You were aimless enough as it was."

Merlin stepped out of the dragon's shadow, his back to Arthur, and shook his head.

"It was necessary," the dragon added. To Arthur's ears, it sounded earnest, perhaps a little desperate to make Merlin believe this. "You and the young Pendragon have a destiny that must be fulfilled."

Merlin continued shaking his head though, wandering in a small, uneven circle. "According to who? No one ever spoke to me of this destiny before you. For all I know, you invented it."

"I invented nothing," the dragon insisted. "I saw your future, one of many, and advised you so that it may come to pass, as it must. This _is_ your destiny."

"Why? Because it's the particular future that you want?"

The dragon lifted its head, perhaps to see Merlin better, or to try to intimidate with his bulk, his huge head hanging over Merlin and pointed down at the top of his head. "It was the best outcome. The young Pendragon will bring about a golden age, Merlin. A time of prosperity and magic where we can all be free. But he can only do this with you at his side. You are two sides of the same – "

"I am tired of everyone telling me what I am," Merlin cut in.

"This is not only about you," the dragon snapped. Its breath blew out sharp from its nostrils and whipped Merlin's hair back from his face. "This is about the good of all, magic and non-magic alike. You must fulfill your destiny. This is your purpose – it is the reason for your existence."

"So that's the only thing I'm good for? Your...war?" Merlin stopped and stared back in the direction of the castle, where flickers of torchlight and dark stone walls were the only things visible above the tree line. "I have betrayed people I loved – innocent people – friends – in the name of your destiny because I thought it meant something. I believed in it, on your word alone."

"You have done what you must to safeguard your king."

"I have brought about the deaths of people who did not need to die, because you said I should."

"You have slain your enemies!" the dragon countered. "Which of them would you rather have lived? The druid boy? The witch?"

"Stop calling her that!"

"You are being foolish! Both would have seen your king dead. Both would have done the same to you, as would many others. And if you had listened to me in the first place, this all could have been avoided. You let them live to rain chaos."

Merlin balked. "I can't just kill people who haven't done anything wrong! I am not a murderer."

"No, you are a _savior_."

"Then why haven't I actually saved anyone?!"

"Because you refuse to do what must be done. You will not make the sacrifices that are necessary because you do not _want to_. You have yet to learn that the world is bigger than your ego."

"Oh," Merlin replied, arrogant in that way he could be sometimes, like challenging a prince in a marketplace. "And is it bigger than yours?"

The dragon went still, and Arthur wondered how even a dragonlord could just stand there in a silent showdown with an angry dragon the size of several houses and not flinch. Finally, the dragon went soft, limbs unfurling and sagging with the release of tension. It stepped closer to Merlin and put its head down near to his. "I have made mistakes, young warlock. But I have never sought to cause you pain. You are dragonkind. _That_ is your value to me. You are my kin."

"No." Merlin swallowed visibly and stepped back, a clear rejection, and corrected, "I am your tool." Then he turned around and commanded, "Stay away from me."

Even Arthur could hear the magic in that command, that it was binding somehow on the dragon. Merlin delved back into the forest on a different track than the one he had come in on, and the dragon emitted a low, long keen, a faraway sound howled at the place where Merlin disappeared. "Merlin. _Merlin_."

Arthur stood slowly, stupidly staring at the dragon where it huffed at the edge of some invisible line that Merlin had apparently drawn in the earth.

" _MERLIN_." The dragon puffed its scales out in its distress and ire, and hissed, "You cannot ignore me!"

Arthur stepped out from behind the bushes that had sheltered him and started backing down the track, but the dragon whipped its head up at the rustling of leaves and sticks, and lumbered in his direction. "Shit." Arthur scrambled backwards blindly until he fetched up hard against a tree. He groped at his hips for a knife or his sword, but all came up with was soggy smashed pear.

The dragon looked angry as it slithered up to him, head lowered as if to strike like a lizard. But then it tipped its jaw down, blew out a hot, smoky stream of air, and mournfully asked, "What have you done?"

Without even thinking, Arthur blurted, "I told him the truth."

Teeth appeared in a shiny white row between curled lips as the dragon accused, "You chose to tell him things he did not need to know. The past is dead and erased. That is what Pendragons do."

Something in the dragon's demeanor implied that this was not exactly a threat, the way he had pushed his massive snout into Arthur's personal space and now commenced to breathe on him like a steam vent. Arthur grasped at the bark of the tree behind him until he could push himself straight. "You think this is _my_ doing? My father never told me anything of this either. I had to hear it like gossip and pry the rest out of my court historian."

The dragon's eyes narrowed to slits and it tilted its head at him. "You expect me to believe that this is not contrived? You murdered Myrddin of Dyfedd yourself. I listened to his screams as he burned."

Arthur's breathing went shallow. "I didn't know who he was."

"An unlikely story."

"I was a child! And you have killed too. Hundreds of my people died in your attacks."

"And _all_ of my people died in yours!"

Arthur stared back at the dragon, strangely calm in the face of its attempt at wrath. It was an old, tired beast, though; Arthur could see how it stood with its weight skewed off of one leg, and its left wing cocked out to the side while the other folded close to its flank. "I cannot make up for my father's wars, nor bring back his dead. And if you truly held a grudge with me for Camelot's sins, you wouldn't also call me the Once and Future King. That's where Merlin got it from, isn't it? From you?"

The dragon shut its eyes and pulled back enough that its exhalations were no longer suffocating. "Yes. Because you are that." Plaintive now, it looked at Arthur and said, "He is my kin."

Arthur nodded, but replied, "He is also mine. And he deserves to hear the truth from someone."

"And who are you to know what the truth is?"

Arthur shook his head. "I have no idea anymore. I've been lied to as well."

The dragon lowered himself toward the ground at that and studied Arthur for a while. Finally, it said, "I cannot protect him if he will not permit me near him."

"And I cannot force him to be what you want."

"So you will instead force him to be what _you_ want?"

Arthur blinked several times, rapid, his head jerking to one side. " _No_."

The dragon stepped closer, intent but not quite predatory. "I saw your mark on him. He wears your crest now, but he is not yours. He is not your blood. Merlin is magic. He belongs to the old religion."

Heated, Arthur replied, "He belongs to himself!"

"And yet you claim him as Pendragon."

Arthur tried to negate that, but all he did was breathe heavily, his temper fraying even as an amorphous sort of fear bloomed in sick heat in his gut. Finally, hating the weakness he couldn't keep from his voice, Arthur defended, "I want him to feel that he belongs somewhere."

The dragon blinked, and drew back. "He belongs everywhere."

Arthur nodded, but said, "And yet, one of the only things I know for sure about him is that he is lonely. He has always been lonely."

They stared at one another, calculating and subdued, until the dragon finally admitted, "That is the price of keeping secrets from those who mean the most to you."

Arthur sidestepped to give himself a clear path back toward the castle, waiting for the dragon to try to advance on him. It didn't. "Secrets may have had their place before, in my father's reign, but he's dead. We cannot go on as we have."

The dragon blinked and raised his head to flick his eyes over the trees above Arthur's head, as if scanning for prey, or for threats. "Do you believe in your destiny, then, young Pendragon?"

"No." Arthur shook his head. "I think it's a lot of fanciful nonsense. But it's as good a thing as any to strive for, isn't it?"

"It is necessary. This land is made from magic; it will perish if you do not achieve your destiny."

Arthur frowned. "Do you only speak in riddles?"

"It is not a riddle. It is the way I speak."

Arthur coughed a laugh against his will, and the dragon dropped its gaze back to him. Contrite now that those glowing eyes were back on him, Arthur muttered, "Sorry."

"As am I," the dragon allowed. "For it is almost too late now." It stepped back and reared its body around without another word, and though it seemed to labor at it, it managed to gain enough air to heave itself from the ground.

Arthur watched the ungainly bulk of the dragon as it glided and flapped itself up and away from the clearing, headed out toward the mountains before veering north. The only sign of its progress was the dwindling blot of dark against the stars until that too became indistinguishable from the night sky. Arthur waited until the forest noise came back, insects and toads and small creatures moving about their business, then gusted out a sudden breath. He bent over and rested his hands on his knees, the rush of confrontation bleeding out until his limbs turned to a numb jelly. Somehow, he managed to breathe steadily through it and keep his feet. Once he was certain of himself again, Arthur turned to make his slow way along the track back to Camelot before anyone noticed he was gone.

 _Arthur hacked with more brawn than strategy, perfectly aware that Uther's age and lack of stamina were his weaknesses. It came as no surprise when Arthur finally landed the blow that wrenched the sword from his father's hands, and it should feel good, shouldn't it? It should feel like vindication to kick out and send his father sprawling back in his privy council chair with a sword at his throat. He should feel something better than this at the way Uther still looked at him like he couldn't understand why his son would do this – as if Arthur would just stop now, point made, and maybe Uther would even beg his forgiveness because there were actually tears threatening in his eyes and it should have felt like an accomplishment to put those there, to ruin his fabricated life._

 _"Arthur! Don't! I know you don't want to do this!"_

 _The sword seemed to freeze in his hand, but it wasn't because of Merlin, or his father, or him, and why couldn't he just press, just press it in, just - "My mother is dead because of him!"_

 _Uther's eyes shone as if it hurt to hear that – the truth. He shouldn't have buried it then - should have faced it if it hurt so much, not murdered his way across the kingdom, and why did he look like Arthur's words stung worse than the point of the sword pricking his collarbone?_

 _"Killing your father won't bring her back."_

 _Arthur's sword arm shook like he had the palsy and his gloved fingers twisted in spasms in his father's vest as he held him there against his chair and tried to just...he could do it, he could deliver justice. H e could end this, and the lie with it._

 _"You've lost one parent. Do you really want to lose another?"_

 _Stop, stop talking, damn him, how dare he question –_

 _"Listen to him, Arthur." Uther's voice shook, his breath still catching and weak._

 _Arthur sniffed hard and tried to ignore the damp in it, elbow raised to get the sword angled just right for the killing blow. Uther flinched, and this time it looked a bit like resignation._

 _Merlin continued, "Arthur, please." Reasonable. Like talking down an hysterical damsel, or a man stood on the edge of a parapet gazing with longing at the ground. "Put the sword down."_

 _He must have been running, Arthur thought vaguely, because he sounded out of breath. "You heard what my mother said." Why didn't they understand, any of them, why didn't Merlin understand? He was there! "After everything he has done!" Innocents dead. Allegiances betrayed, people burned alive crying and unable to understand why their crime deserved it - why what they'd done was a crime at all. "Do you believe he deserves to live? He executes those who use magic and yet he has used it himself."_

 _In Arthur's periphery, Merlin swayed at the words that Arthur spat because he was listening well, and he did know what Arthur was saying, and what he was doing, and why, and it was obvious. Merlin's childhood friend was a sorcerer; he knew the injustice of what Uther had done. He would let Arthur set this right, this one thing, however horrible, because he knew. He knew._

 _"You," Arthur breathed in Uther's face, staggering to maintain the placement of his blade in light of his fury and the shivering of his limbs, his racing heart. "You have caused so much suffering and pain. I will put an end to that." Yet he still couldn't force the blade forward, where it belonged, where he wanted it. And his father merely looked at him as if his heart were breaking at his sins come home to roost, given voice not by his coming death, but by the contempt of the son he would never have known, had he been a better man._

* * *

Arthur trudged back along the track, stumbling now and then over roots he couldn't see. He was less careful than when going in, since he didn't need to keep hidden from Merlin anymore. Except that when he estimated himself about halfway back, he heard a covert rustling followed by a sharp mutter of a word that sounded like _lee-oat_. Arthur froze and lifted his head.

A small, pure white light illuminated Merlin's face to one side of the track, the brightness cupped in the palm of his hand. When Merlin extended the light toward him as if to see him better, Arthur scuttled back on instinct. He wished immediately that he could take that reaction back. The open curiosity flickered and died on Merlin's face as he contracted in on himself, taking the light with him. Merlin averted his gaze and sighed. "Not so trusting of your sorcerer after all?"

Arthur shook himself from his paralysis and took a deliberate step forward. "You startled me. Is that…fire?"

Merlin shook his head and hazarded another glance up at Arthur's face. Whatever he saw there mollified him a bit; most of the wary, guarded look faded from his eyes. He considered Arthur for a moment and then held his hand out again, palm up to show the light there. It wasn't in his palm, exactly, but it also didn't come from anywhere. It had no edges, or boundaries the way the orb had when it led Arthur away from the morteus flowers. It didn't appear to use fuel of any kind either. It wasn't floating or – or emanating from anything. It was just there, pure white. When Arthur hovered his hand nearby it didn't even give off heat. Eventually, Arthur looked past the strange light to Merlin's face, startled by how it washed out his features and left him appearing pale and fey with eyelids puffy from exhaustion and shadowed underneath. Gaunt, with a week's beard growth smeared like dirt along his jaw.

Merlin indicated the light again, and gave what sounded like some sort of peace offering, as if they had been at odds just now. "You can touch it."

Arthur swallowed hard and looked down. He wanted to, if only to prove to Merlin that he could, that it didn't bother him. But it did – it terrified him. And he couldn't. He shook his head rather than give evidence with his voice, certain that it would shake if he tried.

Merlin's hand tipped and wobbled a bit before he drew it back and shook the light out, just as one might shake water from their fingers after a wash. The illuminated glare remained behind as an imprint smeared across Arthur's sight, his night vision ruined. He blinked at the blotch of Merlin's outline until it resolved roughly into the shape of his servant's face, and then let out a breath he hadn't meant to hold.

As if he wanted to be sympathetic, Merlin offered, "It can be overwhelming. Magic."

Arthur swallowed and tried to focus better on Merlin's face, to see if that really were disappointment coloring his voice. "I wasn't expecting it."

Merlin moved, a disorienting sway of darkness in the shadowed forest, and Arthur followed him back onto the track. After rustling their way through a thick spot of brush, Merlin sighed and asked, "Did you hear the whole conversation?"

It crossed Arthur's mind to lie, but why? "Yes. How did you know I was here?"

"I could hear Kilgharrah talking still, but not to me."

"Ah." Arthur followed the sound of Merlin's movements more than the sight of him, and wondered if all dragons had names, or only Merlin's. And then he slowed, because he remembered Merlin using some strange word at Morgana's dragon before succumbing to that first fit. It hadn't occurred to Arthur that what Merlin had said was a name – the crippled little white dragon's name. He had thought that Merlin was confused and just misspeaking at the time. "Do dragonlords just know what they're called, then? Their names? Or do you make up names for them?"

Merlin's outline sidled over a fraction and Arthur could tell that he received a disbelieving glare just by the charge in the air. "I don't make up dragon names. Kilgharrah never told me his; I found out his name from my father." Merlin stumbled a bit and then picked up the pace in the dark. "But a dragonlord had to name him when he was hatched – it's what calls them out of the egg."

Arthur emerged out into the road suddenly, unaware how far they'd travelled, and waited for Merlin to fall in at his side for the walk back, even if there was too much mutually agreed upon distance between them. "So…Morgana's dragon had a name, then? Did she name it? Athelsa? Ethsa?" He couldn't recall the word, exactly.

For a while, Merlin didn't say anything. Then he corrected, "Aithusa. But she didn't name her; Morgana wasn't a dragonlord. Women can't be, I think."

"But she commanded it," Arthur pointed out. "Was it because of her magic?"

"She didn't command her," Merlin snapped. "She _asked_ her. Aithusa chose to obey."

Arthur grimaced, recalling perversely how it sounded when a dragon crunched its teeth through human bone. "You say that like it betrayed you personally." When Merlin's silence turned oppressive, Arthur snapped his head up to look at him. "It wasn't yours, surely." But Merlin didn't deny it. Incredulous, Arthur started to demand to know where Merlin had gotten his hands on a baby dragon, and then he groaned. "That idiot man, Borden. You _thief_. Was there a dragon egg in your bag the whole way back to Camelot?"

Merlin shrugged, and then his teeth gleamed in the starlight as he grinned. Cheeky, bashful lot of trouble of a man. "Yeah, sort of."

Arthur snorted and reached out to give Merlin a playful shove. Then he sobered. "So it was your dragon all along?" He tried not to sound accusing; he truly did. But it was suspicious, and Arthur hated that he couldn't simply dismiss the niggling in the back of his mind that Merlin might show his true colors. As if Arthur didn't already know how unshakable his loyalty was.

Merlin slowed beside him until Arthur was forced to stop and turn around. "I didn't know Morgana found her until it was too late. She can't even speak. Kilgharrah says he can't get near her either; she's feral. I know Morgana wasn't nice at the end, but I don't understand how she could hurt a baby dragon like that. Cripple it and make it cruel. Aithusa was sweet - she really was."

Arthur watched him for a moment and then asked, "No one told you? About the Sarrum?"

Merlin's brow wrinkled and he shook his head.

With a sigh, Arthur explained, "The Sarrum captured Morgana at some point after we retook Camelot the last time. He said that she had a dragon with her, and it wouldn't leave her, so he imprisoned it with her. It grew too big for the space they were in; its limbs had nowhere to go."

"Morgana didn't hurt her then?" Merlin shifted his shoulders in confusion and then demanded, "But then why would she just...kill like that, for Morgana, if it wasn't – "

"Coercion?" Arthur finished, but only because Merlin didn't. "Torture? Maybe Morgana was the only one there," Arthur offered. "Maybe that was enough to make it loyal." He wondered if that were the grown up, mad sorceress version of the little Morgana who used to hide kittens from Uther in her cupboards. "How should I know?" Arthur kicked a stick out of his way and stalked up the road as far as it took to realize that Merlin wasn't following him. "Are you coming, or growing roots?"

Merlin resolved again out of the darkness, his boots crunching lightly along the road after a few more heartbeats of hesitation. "I didn't think dragons needed mothers."

"Mommy Merlin," Arthur mumbled without thinking. And then the absurdity of it wrung a snort of laughter from his chest. "Do dragons nurse?"

Merlin punched him on the arm and Arthur happily collared him in the crook of his elbow, shaking him for a moment before releasing him and shoving him back onto his own feet. They ambled along for a while in comfortable silence after that, and then Merlin said, "I'm glad she found Morgana."

It was a curious thing to say, and Arthur gave Merlin a funny look.

"So that she wasn't alone."

Arthur grimaced and faced forward again. "I'm pretty sure your dragon was better off alone, honestly."

"I wasn't talking about Aithusa."

Neither of them said anything for long enough that they could have let the conversation die, but Arthur eventually had to say, "I'm glad Morgana had a friend too." Then he looked down and chewed the inside of his cheek before asking, "Was she there, in Nemeton?"

Surprisingly, Merlin didn't hesitate to nod. "She's the one who met me."

"Was she…" Arthur grappled for the right words to describe his sister-turned-enemy.

Merlin saved him the need to find the end to that sentence. "She was herself again."

"Good," Arthur breathed, conflicted as to how he should feel about that, knowing the horror of what she did to all of them, and what it meant for all of the years both before her betrayal and after, that the mad, vengeful woman who died impaled on a sword, laughing, wasn't really Morgana at her core. Could she have been saved, then? Even at the last, was there a chance that Arthur missed to turn her away from that path? "I never wanted her to suffer."

"She knows that." Merlin veered closer and bumped their shoulders together. "She's sorry, Arthur. She wishes she could do it over again, and tell you the truth from the beginning."

Arthur glanced at him, wondering if that were a double insinuation – if it were a safe way for Merlin to express the same wish. Rather than say anything, Arthur let him have his obscurity on the subject and simply bumped shoulders back.

"Why were you following me, anyway?"

They emerged from out of the tree line and Arthur clucked, motioning him to follow toward the drawbridge. "I was out walking and saw you. Thought Gwaine might have gotten you to drink yourself senseless, and I don't need you falling off a cobblestone and breaking your neck, or impaling yourself on a toothpick."

"A toothpick," Merlin echoed, tone flat. "I'm not that drunk." He promptly stumbled after saying that though, as if to purposefully bely that.

Arthur grabbed the back of Merlin's jacket to right him again, and then raised a pointed eyebrow. "Oh, yes. You're the picture of sobriety. Then again, you're normally so clumsy that I couldn't tell the difference for sure. Better safe, no?"

Merlin blinked, huffed, and then visibly refrained from making some smartass comeback in the presence of the guards now surging down the road to meet them. Arthur blew them all off and made his way into the lower town, Merlin in silent tow behind him. They eventually broke free of all but a few overzealous foot soldiers and wandered up the streets in a semblance of privacy. Several townspeople stood in their doorways though, curious about the ruckus, and Arthur nodded to them as they passed, gratified that most of them ducked back inside, presumably to go back to bed where they belonged. Where Arthur belonged, too. He glanced at Merlin shambling along beside him, his slim hands clasped behind his back, eyes lowered in a servant's habit so unlike him that Arthur looked away. He really did hate it when Merlin acted like that – the way he was supposed to in keeping with his station. The way he had done for the past few miserable years as Arthur's stresses grew with the burden of kingship, and the gulf widened ever more gaping between them. Arthur hadn't realized how hard it was to bridge something like that after the fact.

They both paused at roughly the same time, and Arthur found himself staring blankly at a blacksmith shop he hardly recognized anymore, shuttered and dark and unused since Elyan's death. Guinevere hadn't come down here since then either, but then again, she hadn't been Guinevere anymore, had she? Arthur didn't even know if anyone had bothered to clean it out. He turned a bit farther until he could see Merlin in his periphery, standing still as a tree in the road. He wasn't looking at Guinevere's old home, though; he was watching Arthur back. They exchanged an uneasy glance and then started moving again in unison, away from the ghosts that seemed to haunt them both.

Arthur frowned at the ground passing beneath his feet and then said, "Eira. Gwaine's woman."

Merlin sighed and wiped a hand over his face. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I'll apologize, to both of them."

Arthur cocked his head to ask, "Weren't you at the Rising Sun with Gwaine earlier?"

"No." Merlin's brow crinkled. "Gwaine's sleeping it off somewhere, I thought."

Arthur looked away, thought about it for a moment, and then told him, "She confessed after you left the hall. Morgana approached her, and she agreed to get in Gwaine's good graces to glean information on our troops."

Merlin didn't say anything to that but his steps slowed, and Arthur's altered to match. It wasn't until they reached the portcullis leading into the courtyard that Merlin offered, "But she hasn't actually committed a crime, has she?"

"She consorted with our enemies and planned to follow through." Arthur pinched his lips together. "But no, not really. She reconsidered, and backed out. And I'm not inclined to punish people for things they merely thought about doing. Actions matter."

Just because he always pointed out the things that Arthur would rather not bother with, Merlin said, "It would be a clever way to avoid suspicion, wouldn't it? Claim a change of heart, play on your better nature? She's a manipulator, Arthur. She would know the best half-truth to tell."

Sourly, Arthur replied, "Yes, I suppose you would recognize like kind."

For a moment, Merlin faltered, in both step and speech, but he recovered well enough to snap, "Yes, I imagine I would."

Arthur shook his head and looked down again. "Forget I said that. It was unkind; I know you aren't a betrayer."

"Not of you, at least."

Arthur felt the truth of that in the chill that stole across his shoulders, but he let it go because he didn't know how to deal with something like that. "She's confined for now. Apparently, she's been living with Gwaine, and Gwaine won't put her out. I don't know where he went for the night; maybe the barracks."

"Maybe," Merlin replied, noncommittal. He seemed troubled about the whole matter, but so was Arthur; it didn't need further remark right now. Once they reached the courtyard, Arthur ground to a stop and turned to face Merlin, who was already turning away with a shallow bow. "Goodnight, Arthur."

Arthur stood there like an idiot until Merlin reached the little door tucked away at the end of the courtyard. "Wait!" He hurried across the cobbled stone, but in a dignified manner, striding as if he were in the middle of very important business. Which he was. Sort of.

Merlin stood half concealed in the doorway, his face expectant as if waiting for Arthur to remind him of some chore, or give him a list of things for the next day. Arthur just drifted to a stop in front of him, though, unable to figure out how to say what he wanted without sounding weak. It seemed like Merlin had an idea of what was going on, though, because he let his mouth shape itself into an apologetic smile. "I have to make an early start tomorrow." He started to move away again.

Arthur's hand moved of its own accord to snag Merlin's bicep, and he held on more forcibly than he probably should have. "You could stay upstairs. With me. Again. It's warmer, and George won't have to run across the whole castle to bring us both breakfast."

Merlin seemed to contract, his edges drawing close in some ineffable way that had nothing to do with the dimensions or cant of his body. He covered Arthur's fingers briefly where they dug into his arm, soothing, and then he removed Arthur's hand. "It's not a good idea. I'll see you in the morning."

Arthur wasn't thinking when he shot a hand out to snag at Merlin again, but as soon as Merlin jerked back at the manhandling, his face alarmed and his body tensed as if to flee, Arthur unhanded him, holding his hands up and away in a gesture of passivity. He couldn't quite look at Merlin as he did it, embarrassed both at their reactions and at the way he could feel his ears turning red. Uncertain as to whether or not he really wanted to hear the answer, Arthur asked, "Was it just duty? Or...convenience?"

Merlin shook his head somewhere in Arthur's periphery. "What...?"

"When you offered. That. And when I asked how far you would have let me go – what you would have let me do." It was mortifying, but Arthur knew he had to ferret out where he stood with Merlin, exactly. Using a toss-away moment when they were both drunk enough to laugh it off in the morning seemed reasonable, until he actually started talking. "You said whatever I wanted. You said it should be obvious. Was it just because I'm the king? Did you feel obligated after sleeping in my bed?"

Arthur's hope for a swift denial shattered as Merlin just looked at him, his lips parted as if about to speak, and then uncertain how to say it. Finally, he replied, "It's not that simple."

"What is it, then?" He chanced a glance up and found Merlin looking both pained and at a loss. "If you're worried that I was only thinking of...of using you...? It's not that."

"Of course not. You're a prat, but you're not a cad."

"Then was it guilt?"

Merlin narrowed his eyes and balked. "Guilt? For what?"

"Breaking your promise? Depriving me of my...Guinevere?"

"No!" Merlin's licked his lips, gaze dropping to wander along the floor and toward the stair just behind him. "No, I didn't think that. I told you, I have no interest in replacing her. I can't. And it wasn't because I'm your servant. I mean, some servants do that. A lot of them. Sometimes, because they have to, but I know you aren't like that, and I wouldn't anyway, like that, for you, but you're better than that anyway, and I just... I don't… I mean it's not like I ever thought about that like – like _that_. I don't have…lust for you or anything. You're just…familiar. And it was nice, when I woke up. And I want…sometimes…" He trailed off finally, having backed further away as if to distance himself from all of the babbling that he just wanted someone sometimes, the same way Arthur did. A familiar body as comfort. Except that Arthur was starting to wonder if that were all Merlin felt. Familiarity wasn't what kept him in Camelot, after all. It wasn't why Merlin seemed so devoted to him, in defiance of his own best interests. Familiarity and "nice" didn't make men willing to die for each other when they didn't have to – when they weren't sworn to it, outside the heat of the moment. And that probably applied as much to Arthur as it did to Merlin, which was a somewhat terrifying thought since they'd both been doing it – almost dying for each other – since nearly the beginning.

And nice didn't make Merlin willing to do monstrous things, just for Arthur's sake. It wasn't what made him hate himself for carrying out something that wasn't actually his duty, dragons and crazy prophets aside. That commitment had to come from something stronger, and less tangible.

Arthur felt something warm bloom in his gut and stepped forward, ignoring the wary cant of Merlin's body as he watched Arthur approach again. "Right, then; I can understand that. So just…come upstairs. We'll just sleep, like the last times." He couldn't quite bring himself to say that he didn't really fancy being alone either, but the words stuck and he let them die back there in his chest. "If you want to."

"I don't know what I want." Merlin retreated again, and even though it pained him, Arthur let him have that distance. "I just don't want to feel like this anymore." Whatever _this_ was.

Arthur nodded because that was raw honesty, and Merlin didn't normally give him that without also being strange and abrupt and misleading about it, or cracking a joke, or running off with an armful of laundry to avoid Arthur's nearly inevitable teasing. "Then come upstairs." He moved forward again and snagged at Merlin's shirt, stumbling him forward with a light tug. "So I know where you are."

Merlin seemed surprised by his own compliance and stiffened again, head shaking more vehemently now. "Arthur, I can't. That's…I have a bed." He let Arthur reel him in though, and shuffled toward the door back out to the courtyard, so that they could reenter through the royal house. "And I have to be up early, and you hate getting up early."

"That's fine. Come on." Arthur ignored the protests and kept exerting a gentle enough pressure that he didn't feel as if he were forcing Merlin to go with him. Just…insistently guiding him to where Arthur wanted him.

Merlin let himself get as far as the doorway, Arthur already through it, before he planted his feet. "No. I can't. It's Gwen's bed, with you. I shouldn't have been in it; it's wrong. I'm sorry, I didn't... I should have refused."

"I told you, just sleeping."

Merlin replied in a whisper, "It's not _just_ anything for me."

After a moment spent considering Merlin's downcast eyes in silence – his clear reluctance – Arthur let him go. Thankfully, though, Merlin stayed where Arthur left him instead of scuttling away or replacing the space between them. "If you don't want to sleep with me, if it's that uncomfortable, then just say so, Merlin. Have the decency to turn me down like a man."

"If I don't - ?" Merlin blinked a few times, glanced up, and then his eyes slid past Arthur and out into the cobbled darkness of the courtyard. "I offered. More than once, and I'm an idiot for it. You're the one who didn't want it."

Arthur swallowed and took a sharp breath to retort, but it died quickly. He sighed. "I know. I _know_. I'm not...comfortable...entirely...with the idea of it."

"Do you feel guilty? Is that it?"

Arthur almost demanded to know what on earth he should feel guilty for – he was the king, after all; he could do as he wished – but it seemed like one of those things that would have made Guinevere frown at him for being dense. For acting entitled, or…or cold. Cautious now, Arthur said, "If you're asking if I feel guilt for wanting someone near? Someone I know and trust with my life? For feeling something other than grief or – or horror at knowing she's not where she should be? Then…no, Merlin. I'm not betraying anyone. I feel guilt for her death – for not noticing sooner, and for not saving her – "

"Because of me," Merlin broke in. "You didn't save her because you chose me. And if you choose me for that too, even just for a service, it's worse."

Brutal, that. Arthur swallowed over something threatening sick, but he nodded, because it was true in a way whether or not Merlin understood Arthur's motivations for it then, or his ability to let it go now. "Yes, I chose you. It had nothing to do with - with whatever this is - " He gestured vaguely between them - "but yes. And I would do it again." Arthur watched Merlin misconstrue that as expected, then seized at him when he tried to leave the conversation. He weathered Merlin's brief struggle to free himself before hissing, "Listen to me – _listen_!" He gentled his voice back down by force, though it strained a bit in the back of his throat, scraping his vocal chords hoarse. "I stand by what I did, Merlin. Maybe it would have worked – maybe you could have healed her body with Morgana's life, and maybe you could have freed her from the enchantment or we could have convinced her again to step into the water, but it was killing you."

Merlin bared his teeth and wrenched himself backwards, dragging Arthur with him, until he was basically pinned against the wall. "I told you – "

Arthur's calm withered and he snapped, "I don't give a damn about your stupid life magic! Guinevere may have lived, yes. But I had to beg that goddess light thing to save you." Pure light, white and shining from nowhere like the strange glow that Merlin could breathe into his palm. Divine light. Something to hold sacred. Something that Merlin could make at will in his hand, and then shake from his fingers as if it were nothing. "Do you think I wanted that? For my best friend to trade his life for my wife? It wasn't your sacrifice to make, Merlin."

"It wasn't your choice!" Merlin spit back. "I was handling it – she didn't have to die!"

"She was already dead! I saw a hollow queen betray our secrets to our enemy, Merlin – I lost my wife before I even knew she was gone." Arthur huffed out a humid, clogged breath and backtracked to say, "You didn't have to die either. You can hate me for making that choice, but I will not let you hold the guilt for it. That is mine, and mine alone. And I would do it again. Because there was no guarantee, and whatever else you think, I _saw_ what it was doing to you." Arthur shifted his grip, too tight and bruising on a wrist still too bony, still too thin. He forced Merlin's arm up between them as Merlin grit his teeth and gave Arthur an absolutely ugly look, then shoved back the sleeve of Merlin's robe to bare the marks that lingered there still, faint like threads up his forearm. He shook Merlin's own arm in Merlin's face to make his point. "You don't remember what happened – you didn't see it wrapping around you, crawling _inside_ you until you nearly choked on it! Do you really think, once you got it out of her, that it would have _let_ you save her? You would have died for nothing."

"No," Merlin sneered, and Arthur realized that there were worse recriminations than the ones Merlin might lay at his own feet when he noticed the shine of wet smeared all down Merlin's cheeks now – angry things, salt and awful thoughts and snot. "You're not that cold. You loved her – "

"Yes!" Arthur shouted at his face, his own composure washed away on a rising tide of everything he hadn't bothered to feel over the past year for fear that he might drown in it. He let himself revel for just a breath in the satisfaction when Merlin flinched at the gust of the word in his face, but then made himself calm down again before the fight instinct made him do or say something regretful. "Yes," Arthur repeated at lower volume. "I loved her, Merlin. _So_ much. But I had to choose."

"No, you didn't!"

Arthur grunted with exertion at forcing Merlin to remain where he was, in this conversation that Arthur really didn't want to have either. "Her body was dying, and that was the only part of her left anyway. Do you really think she'd have ever forgiven me for letting you kill yourself to preserve her empty shell?"

Merlin blew out a wet breath of something through the teeth he had clenched over his bottom lip, and then he spat, "You had to save your sorcerer. You let her die because you _need_ magic, more than you need a queen – there are dozens more queens out there, you could have your pick, but I'm the only sorcerer who doesn't want you dead, and you need that, you _need me_ – just like your father needed Gaius. A necessary evil for the good of the kingdom – "

Arthur wasn't even thinking when he hauled off and backhanded the words out of Merlin's mouth to shut him up. They were both breathing heavily, heart rates no doubt dangerously high, but everything finally went still. Abruptly, what he had done sunk in and Arthur unhanded Merlin as if he'd caught fire. He tried in vain to calm the heaving of his chest, but couldn't quite manage it. "Is that what you think? That I sacrificed my _wife_ for the sake of Camelot's defenses?"

Merlin wasn't audibly crying, but his every inhalation came out a wreck as he pressed the back of one trembling hand to his now split lip. "Why else?" he choked miserably. "You _loved_ her. I'm just a bad servant with magic."

Arthur breathed in shallow disbelief for a moment, and then blurted, "What happened to you? How could you think that? Any of it?" He at least possessed enough awareness to realize that what Merlin said actually had nothing to do with Arthur. He wasn't trying to make out as if Arthur were actually that horrible, to throw away his own wife for the sake of politics or a…a weapon of magic. It said more about Merlin himself than anything else. "You've never thought so little of yourself."

Merlin inhaled sharply as if he meant to retort, but instead, he sagged back against the wall and turned his hand over to cover his mouth with his palm. "I might be sick," he confessed.

"Knew you were still drunk," Arthur said, but it fell flat rather than teasing. When it seemed that Merlin's breathing was only getting worse, Arthur shook his head and shouldered into his space until Merlin folded into him and coughed a few awful lungsful of grief into Arthur's shoulder. "Don't you dare throw up on me. I like this shirt."

Merlin laughed like a startled bird and gripped back, his own grasp weaker than Arthur's. The words, when they came, were sheer whispers forced through a constricted throat, barely there, like gasps through the veil. "I can't do anything right. I keep trying and it all comes out shit, and everyone's screaming at me about destiny and golden ages and what I have to do, and how I'm doing it wrong, but what I have to do keeps making people die, and I can't...I can't fix any of it, and I'm tired. Arthur, I'm so tired of feeling like I'm failing everyone."

Arthur's own lungs deflated and went fallow for a moment. It was a feeling Arthur knew well – the guilt of having someone because of him, and king or not, there was always some part of him that thought he didn't deserve that sacrifice. That maybe he was a curse, to be ringed by bodies – to leave a trail of the dead behind him his entire life. "That's not how these things work," he said. "People die, and it's not always fair. And if we're lucky, it hurts like hell afterwards so that we know it meant something – that they meant something. But if we just give up? Let the pain take over and kill us too? Then their life was a waste. We render their sacrifice worthless. And we can't do that, Merlin. We can't disrespect them like that."

"I know," Merlin mumbled, but it seemed wrote. "I know, I just want it to stop."

Arthur shifted and nodded with his face pressed against Merlin's hair. "So do I," he confessed. "But that's not always in our power, and you have to learn to let this go. Because I can't lose you too. Alright?" He only realized he was crying as well when he had to bite the words out like pain through his throat. "Don't do that to me, Merlin. I've lost enough already. You can't go too."

Merlin grew heavier against him, but when he spoke, it was a low sound, and hard to hear. "I was supposed to save her. And Gaius and Will…Morgana…my _father_ … I could have saved them. I'm supposed to save people."

In his heart, Arthur didn't believe that those deaths could have been averted. He knew that Merlin carried a power that made other magic look cheap, but Arthur felt somewhere deep down that no, he couldn't have given any of them their lives back. And with Guinevere's at least, Arthur wasn't about to apologize for making the choice that he had, even knowing the awful consequence of that. "It's done with," he said instead. "And this wouldn't make any of them happy." He closed his eyes and pressed his nose to the dark hair near Merlin's temple, where the scar still sat hidden from the fall he took off the path to the cauldron. "It's late. Let's get you to bed before some patrol walks by. Come on." Merlin tried to wriggle out of Arthur's hold again, but Arthur merely kept his arm around Merlin's shoulders and steered him up the stairs. "In your own room," Arthur promised. "Not mine. Up you get."

As they stumbled up into the corridor leading to the physician's chamber, Arthur glanced down the side passage to his right to find a guard stood at attention, looking uncomfortable. Arthur eyed him suspiciously, but the guard bowed his head, one finger tapping the side of his nose to indicate his silence concerning what he had clearly overheard. It occurred to Arthur to be more suspicious of that, and of the guard's motives, but he didn't have it in him just then, and Merlin seemed barely able to keep his feet under him from exhaustion and drink, no matter that he claimed he wasn't impaired. Arthur nodded back to the guard and watched over his shoulder long enough to be sure that the man turned down the stairs and away from them. Then he focused on maneuvering Merlin into the physician's chambers and over to the big goose down mattress against the wall where Gaius had used to sleep, a luxury given to old bones and long service.

Merlin's docile behavior frightened Arthur only because he'd never seen such a thing in Merlin before, save for the moments leading up to a fit. Maybe he had been like this sometimes with Gaius, though: vulnerable. Small. Hurt. Arthur didn't like that thought, that this Merlin wasn't an isolated incident – that he could be like this regularly, and only now with Gaius gone did Arthur see it, because there was no one else, and Merlin couldn't hold the illusion any longer that he was alright all of the time. Merlin allowed Arthur to remove his newly fitted surcoat, and then his tunic until he sat bare chested on the mattress in only his trousers and boots, and Arthur's crest dangling over his lap. Arthur glanced around for sleepwear but since nothing obvious caught his eye, he dismissed it and instead removed Merlin's boots while Merlin stared blankly over Arthur's head.

After a moment's thought, and then second thoughts, Arthur turned next to his own attire and removed everything until he, too, stood clad in only his breeches. Then he knelt in front of Merlin, too close to be casual but still far enough that Merlin could push him away if he wanted to. He put his hands on Merlin's knees and waited until Merlin's gaze wandered back down to him, haunted and slack in the dim light from the dying hearth fire. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way," Arthur started, absently shifting to thumb away a smear of blood from Merlin's lip where his tooth had cut in, courtesy of Arthur's own hand. "You've been unusually idiotic of late." It was no kind of apology, but Arthur didn't know how to apologize when it really mattered, about something like this. He wasn't even certain that he should. He rested his hand back on Merlin's knee and squeezed briefly. "I don't want to leave you alone to sleep like this." He made it sound like a question, but Merlin just stared back, bleary-eyed and uncomprehending. "You can say no and I'll make up a pallet on the floor," Arthur added, "though I'd rather not. Just don't think that I'm doing this callously. All right?" He risked reaching up to feather his fingertips over Merlin's cheek, crusty now with dried salt and beard scruff. He could hear the sadness, the confusion in his own voice when he admitted, "I don't know what else to do to make you understand." Arthur's hand wandered down and covered the royal crest on its chain where it hung just below Merlin's heart.

Merlin gave a slow blink in response, his eyes half closed with something other than sleepiness. "Understand what?"

Arthur tried to inject some levity into his smile, but he could feel that it came off empty. "You're not usually this dim." Then he let the artifice fade. "You are more than some dusty old dragon's prophecy. And you're not a replacement for Guinevere. You occupy an entirely different part of my heart – you've always been there. I don't know why, and I don't know how you got in there in the first place. But you did, and it's got nothing to do with your birthright or destiny, or any other mad idea people have crammed into your head. I've not done right by you, considering everything you've done for me and for Camelot. Everything you've been willing to sacrifice, even when you thought no one would thank you for it if they ever knew. There were plenty of years when saving my life the way you do would have led me to condemn you." With magic. For magic.

"I never asked for your gratitude."

 _Never asked,_ Arthur thought. But he didn't say, _never wanted_. " No. Just the same, I _am_ grateful. And I don't think I can afford to look past you anymore." He shook his head and let his mouth crease into an unhappy line, head tipped just a bit to one side. "And I refuse to watch you fade." Arthur's fingers trailed around to cup Merlin's jaw and when Merlin pressed into it like one of Arthur's hunting dogs desperate for affection, Arthur didn't think he realized he was doing it. Again, he warned, "You're allowed to refuse me."

Merlin didn't say anything though, and his face said nothing either; it didn't even speak of confusion at Arthur's odd behavior. So Arthur nodded and leaned in to press his lips to Merlin's forehead, his other hand coming up to frame Merlin's face and tip it down so that Arthur could reach. He heard himself saying, days and nights ago to a Merlin passed out cold in Arthur's bed, like an echo in a well, _I want to be the king you think I am_. And he did; the gilded vision that Merlin spun of Arthur ruling over a united Albion was…beautiful. But so was the possibility of the man in front of him, and Arthur needed that more than some shining illusion of a world that may never come to pass.

Without opening his eyes, Arthur rubbed his nose down over Merlin's rough cheek and then paused, breathing the same air, waiting for Merlin to stiffen or back away or throw Arthur off. He didn't move though, and his frame didn't go rigid, so Arthur rested his brow against Merlin's temple and opened his eyes. "Lie back." He pushed, hand centered against Merlin's sternum where he could feel his own royal crest pressed to Merlin's flesh, sure to leave indents in the hard pectoral muscle in the shape of a dragon, but Merlin didn't fold back onto the bed. His eyes wandered down to Arthur's hand splayed against his skin, brow rumpled like old linen, and then he swung his head back up, slowly, as if looking for the explanation for that touch in the space past Arthur's shoulder, his eyes unfocused and canted off to the side. It seemed natural for Arthur to crane his neck up and press his closed lips against Merlin's slightly parted ones, the way he might kiss a beloved brother in arms, soft and chaste.

When they parted, Merlin followed for a moment like a flower toward the sun, helpless. It was the same absent motion that Arthur remembered when he closed the doors on his father's dead body and beckoned Merlin to follow him away. Like a compass swinging back to face north again. In the space of the next breath, Merlin finally seemed to come back from within himself. He blinked at Arthur, but made no other reaction or protest.

Again, Arthur coaxed, "Just lie back."

A shadow passed over Merlin's face, as if he wanted to question something – Arthur's motives, maybe, or his sanity. He didn't voice any of it, though; Merlin gave in when Arthur pushed at his chest again, and rolled back onto the straw mattress without protest. Arthur pat at his thigh until Merlin took the hint to swing his legs up too, and then Arthur fumbled a bit, ignoring the protest of his knees digging against the hard stone floor until he could perch up on the edge of the bed, hip to hip. Arthur wasn't young anymore, as the lingering ache in his joints showed, but he knew that already; he had used his body hard in his youth – jousts and tournaments, battles, long days on horseback or training in full armor, and a reckless disregard for his heart.

Arthur rested his hand on Merlin's stomach, fingers curving at the edges over the dip of a firm waist. He was pale, but Arthur had always thought that Merlin's skin lacked a flush of healthy color. And there were scars, too – threaded pink lines here and there, a pock low on his abdomen that might have been a bolt wound, and of course the faded burn covering one side of his heart. Arthur took a deep breath and then fought not to let it turn into a sigh at the spread of blemished skin before him. Merlin wasn't made for this. He shouldn't have to tear himself apart at the seams to meet the demands of duty against the cry of his conscience. He shouldn't bear marks the way a knight does, as if it were commonplace. Expected. Nothing special. Merlin should have been protected from this, all of this – Arthur should have known to protect him.

Gruff with weariness and a miasma of more poorly defined emotions, Arthur murmured, "I'm sorry it took so long for me to see you." He sniffed, prim even though it was out of place here, now. "You deserved a better friend."

Merlin swallowed and curled restless fingers into loose fists near his chest. "You don't know all the things I've done. I'm not a nice person anymore, Arthur. I deserve far worse than to be ignored."

Arthur looked up, denial poised on his lips, but Merlin didn't really seem to be paying attention to him, not entirely. He spoke his words to the ceiling, his eyelids drooping with fatigue and probably lingering drunkenness. Arthur regrouped and teased, "Are you trying to be interesting again?" He shut his eyes briefly though when it sounded more sad than anything else.

"Don't," Merlin snapped softly, his voice thick with mucus. "You told me yesterday to see you for who you really are. Do me the same courtesy, at least."

Arthur grimaced. "Not exactly a courtesy, is it?" He looked down at his hand, still splayed over the smooth stretch of Merlin's stomach where a line of hair trailed down beneath the drawstring of Merlin's breeches, slung almost obscenely low across his hips. Arthur traced it with a thumb, and Merlin's jaw clenched. Arthur read anger in the tension that made the tendons stand out along Merlin's clavicle. Or…no, not anger. Self-disgust. Such a disturbingly familiar thing to see on Merlin's face of late. Finally, Arthur offered, "I well understand how it feels to carry the weight of a kingdom – to be responsible for its peoples' well-being, and think that maybe you didn't do enough. That maybe you failed them, or made the wrong decision and harmed them instead."

Thankfully, Merlin forbore to reassure him of his gleaming destiny or his intransigent goodness, as he usually did when Arthur disparaged his kingship. What he said instead, though, may have been worse. "You wouldn't like me anymore if you knew half the things I've done to keep you alive." He raised his arms and pressed shaking hands over his eyes, the meat of his palms digging in under his eyebrows as if he could press the remembered sights back into his skull where they wouldn't play in front of him anymore. "What I'm responsible for. I didn't fail them – I led them to slaughter. I knew it was wrong – I could feel it. And I still did it. I had a chance. Arthur, I had a chance to stop all of it."

Arthur shook his head because he didn't want to hear this – Merlin was _good_. Merlin was like a puppy desperate to please one moment and then playfully nipping at his hand the next to draw innocent blood, not meaning to hurt. Merlin was his friend – maybe his only real one, for all that Arthur was pants as being a friend back to him, all ranks and titles aside. He could have done better, even within the bounds of duty and crown, but he hadn't tried, not the right way, not the way Guinevere thought he should have. And now Merlin was all he had left that really mattered. "Hindsight," Arthur croaked. He dropped his gaze to Merlin's navel, exposed now that Merlin was hiding his face, a single pock in an otherwise smooth and pale stomach, shadowed in the hollow beneath the diaphragm, a patch of skin that remained incongruously unblemished. "It can be cruel," Arthur told him. "But you didn't know then what you know now. You made the best decision you could with the knowledge that you had, and you thought you were doing right." Desperate for the reassurance, and sick at the thought that Merlin might come up with a reasonable explanation for this self-blame, Arthur's gaze flashed back up to Merlin's obscured face. He shouldn't ask. It betrayed both of their trust to ask, but he did it anyway. "Didn't you?"

Merlin sucked in a breath that ballooned his slim ribcage and rounded out the concave bit below. Then he let his hands slide from his face to lie open on either side of his head, staring blankly up at the rafters as he exhaled. "I don't know." His voice sounded hollow like a dried-out autumn gourd, but not despondent or whingy. It was just an answer, plain and unhesitant. An honest sigh of words. "I don't know if I ever really had a choice."

"We always have a choice," Arthur countered, but he winced just after he said it because it sounded like recrimination. "We don't always realize that though. During." He sighed and twisted a bit to sit properly on the bed with his elbows on his knees, even though it put Merlin mostly behind him on the bed. "Sometimes," he offered, thinking of the dragon and Merlin's shouting at it. "Sometimes we take bad counsel from others, not knowing that they have an agenda of their own." He frowned and studied his own knuckles, so unlike a noble's, roughened and cracked from sword work. "We let other people's fear, or their ambition, or their faulty values sway us in a direction we aren't sure we should go. It doesn't lessen the guilt we bear, but it explains…a little…why we might do the wrong thing even though we know better. Because we trust them, and doubt our own wisdom, and feel like maybe they really do know better. We mistake authority and experience, or age, for knowledge of what's right." He thought briefly of Agravaine convincing him that it only made sense to kill Carleon, that to do so was a show of strength, but that memory paled beside so many of the things that Arthur's own father had convinced him to do. " Or we put our trust in the wrong people. And of course we had a choice, but it didn't seem so clear at the time that what we were about to do might…" Arthur pursed his lips and thought of sitting at the practice field with Merlin failing at mending Arthur's torn old tunic, gods, was it just that morning? He echoed their conversation in the frosty dawn. "That it might have _unintended consequences_."

Merlin shifted behind him, but he didn't say anything more.

When Arthur looked at him over his shoulder, he found a blank caricature of a man watching him back. Eventually, lacking any sort of answer that might put the issue to rest, Arthur twisted on the cot, leaning his hand on Merlin's opposite side, near his hip, so that Arthur could face him. He didn't mean to hover or cage Merlin in, but he didn't think that distance had ever helped either of them, and Arthur was tired anyway. Sometimes it seemed that he denied himself everything he truly wanted, which wasn't entirely accurate on balance, since he wasn't exactly deprived of anything either. But he did censor himself and second guess every impulse he had. He held them all up against his crown to judge their suitability, or the way they might reflect on his authority, or the disapproval he might have to weather from his council for wanting the things he wanted in private, just for himself. Arthur looked down again, at his servant. At a man who gave up his own chance at a real life to be at Arthur's side. The intimacy of their relative positions appealed to Arthur in a way that few things did anymore. It felt like rebellion – against his father, against his crown – like coveting something he shouldn't have. It felt like he had stolen something and refused to give it back because at heart, he was selfish, maybe. And it wasn't like Merlin was going to demand that Arthur part with it.

Merlin blinked but allowed Arthur in his space like this, submissive as he normally, paradoxically was, but this time, free of challenge or attitude. Arthur shook his head, a gesture of confusion more than anything else, because Merlin disobeyed him on a regular basis, sassed him, teased him, ignored their ranks, complained and generally behaved difficultly, disrespectfully for a servant. But he did submit. Always, he submitted to Arthur. His king. He didn't have to, both as a citizen of Essetir, technically, and as possibly the more physically powerful of the two of them, given his magic. But he did submit, and it gave Arthur pause. Merlin allowed Arthur to rule him for no other reason than that he chose to. It was probably duty that made him do it, at first – to Arthur, to Camelot, to his mother and Gaius, to his stupid destiny. But why still? When he didn't have to?

Arthur swallowed. "You said it's not duty, but it's not simple." He could see from the closing of Merlin's face that he understood where Arthur was going, repeating his words from the stairwell. Arthur didn't want to ask, but he didn't want the vague unknown either. He might ruin this, whatever they had, but he couldn't risk resting on an assumption of things Merlin wouldn't say. "Do you love me?"

"Everyone loves you." It was a flippant answer – the deflection Arthur expected to come first. Merlin was actually frighteningly good at misdirection, and it made this, at least, predictable.

Arthur nodded and merely repeated, softer this time, "Do _you_ love me, Merlin?"

Merlin's throat worked, but his face gave away little else. "Of course I do; you're my king."

It felt shallow, the slow slough of air as Arthur inhaled.

Merlin's face shifted into something wary, and before Arthur could ask a third time, he warned, "Don't, Arthur. Nothing good will come of it."

"Then the answer's no?" Arthur knew it wasn't, and his tone surely betrayed that.

"You know it's not," Merlin whispered. He cleared his throat and continued, his voice more firm, "But you will have to marry again. The kingdom needs an heir."

"You lectured me once on reasons to marry. I seem to recall something about how we're all mad, using it for politics."

"Any dalliance with me will weaken you as king. You know it will. I'm not a woman you can raise above her station and justify at court; I can't give you an heir. And you heard them in council, Arthur; you show favoritism to a man they think you bed. It's one thing to have a bit of fun, or to seek relief or a servant's indulgence to ensure you don't father a bastard or pollute your bloodlines with your body's needs. But that's not what you're doing now, and I can't..." Merlin shook his head and fixed his eyes on Arthur's, clear and doubtless. "I would do anything you asked of me, Arthur, but you can't love me like that."

Arthur blinked, because he had expected that they would dance around it a while longer. Changing tacks, Arthur told him, "I haven't much choice in the matter."

Apparently insistent that Arthur somehow come to his senses, Merlin pointed out, "You don't even really know me."

Arthur nodded and let his nostrils flare. It was true; he didn't really know Merlin at all, not the way he had once thought. But he'd been thinking about that for years now, ever since he recognized Dragoon's tattered old boots, and just as he had a dozen times over the intervening years since then, Arthur decided, "I know you well enough."

He tasted like salt dried in crusts on a rock, frozen like parched ice at the seaside when Arthur leaned down, unsure of his reception but determined nonetheless because Merlin had said _anything_. Whatever Arthur asked of him. And it sounded disturbingly close to duty when Arthur played it back in his head, waiting for Merlin to respond, but he'd seen Merlin's face, seen the lack of guile, and however much a liar Merlin was sometimes, there were plenty of things he never learned to hide well.

A shocked breath of air whistled between them, and it felt like a windstorm when Merlin finally moved, hands gripping Arthur's biceps like vices. Arthur swallowed up the dejected sound that came from Merlin's lips. He allowed the desperate clawing at his back and the way Merlin seemed to want to smother himself against Arthur because he understood that. He knew what that impulse felt like, pale and just short of fury. It was graceless when Arthur bore Merlin back down onto the bed, them clambered up over him. An utter travesty, but Arthur didn't really care. They were already a complete mess, and Arthur didn't think it mattered much, being smooth or suave when every sound Merlin made seemed like it hurt. He considered grappling a bit with Merlin's trouser laces, or perhaps with his own, but it seemed too much trouble in their current states, sloppy and still a little bit drunk, like it would be too easy to make a mistake they couldn't come back from. Instead, Arthur merely tipped a bit to one side and hiked a leg over Merlin's thigh to give them both something to press against.

Merlin huffed at the pressure and Arthur slotted their mouths back together, wishing that Merlin's body weren't all but screaming of distress and the wrong kind of abandon. Rough stubble upbraided Arthur's lips and he tried to find something smooth instead to gentle him, but he had no idea how to go about it. He ended up just trying to hold Merlin still with his forearms braced over Merlin's shoulders to grasp the pillow beneath his head, pinning him like an insect on a study board. He trapped Merlin's wrists against the pillow too in a tangle of arms, and finally, Arthur could hear how Merlin edged toward hyperventilation, struggling against Arthur's hold and Arthur's stillness, if not really against Arthur himself. As if he wanted something violent. Something rough and meaningless – perhaps something that felt like approbation – an act of the body in which he didn't have to invest too much. Because they shouldn't be doing this at all, but since they were, it needed to mean nothing. A servant letting a king do as he wished and nothing more, just as Merlin offered in the first place, days ago over armor polish and mulled wine and limbs bent like hat racks in front of the fire.

Arthur refused those terms, the chill of a business transaction, and rode out the furious and sudden thrashing that exploded out of Merlin the moment Arthur stopped moving and looked directly at him. He held Merlin down against the mattress until the fight gave way to limp, heaving half-sobs, and then Arthur let go of his wrists in favor of holding his head so that Merlin had to face him.

"It's alright," Arthur murmured. "I've got you."

Merlin fumbled his hands against Arthur's chest and shoved, growling wetly in the back of his throat, but there was no heart in it. He squeezed his eyes shut instead, panicked a bit, and then gave in to the press of Arthur's lips along his chin and jawline, his cheek, and finally back to his mouth. The sound Merlin made against Arthur's lips was like a wounded dog, and Arthur relinquished the kiss when it became apparent that Merlin was struggling to breathe.

"Calm," Arthur soothed, as he might do to a horse kicking up a fit in its stall at the lightning. He pet down Merlin's throat, watched it jump and click oddly beneath his fingers, and then nodded when Merlin made an effort to breath normally. "It's alright."

"What are you doing?" Merlin demanded, shaky with unnecessary exertion. "Just take what you want!"

Arthur didn't answer because he really didn't know how, or what to call his intentions, or if he should name them at all. Merlin made good points, after all, about the suitability of this kind of interlude when one party was king. Instead, Arthur watched his own hand rub a firm line down over the burn mark on Merlin's chest, and then cupped the Pendragon crest where it sat askew on one flat, solid pectoral. "Do you want me to stop?"

The question seemed to confuse Merlin because he shook his head at the ceiling, brow furrowed, and stumbled his tongue over a nothing word. "Do _you_ want to stop?"

Arthur shook his head and told him again, perhaps stupidly, "It's alright."

Merlin gulped in a few breaths, twitching gently with each one, chest juddering beneath Arthur's hand. Then he asked in a small, unsteady voice, "Arthur?"

Arthur leaned down and closed his eyes, his forehead dipping to touch the ridges of Merlin's sternum where Arthur could feel his heartbeat through his skin.

"What…" Merlin had to breathe again after that single word, and then resumed, "…what is this? Stop being - _What are you doing?"_

With his mouth hovering near enough to Merlin's chest that he could feel the humidity of his skin, Arthur replied, "Isn't it obvious?" Arthur raised himself up enough to catch a glimpse of Merlin blinking as if trying to resolve what he saw into something that made sense, even though it was the tower ceiling beams he was looking at. "I can stop." In truth, this was probably a terrible idea anyway, and Arthur knew that. The fact that Merlin had to consider that caused something in Arthur to shrivel. "If I've misunderstood… Do you not want this?"

"I told you before, I don't mind." But Merlin didn't seem to register the same question that Arthur had actually asked, and instead began fumbling toward Arthur's groin, trying to shrug off Arthur's hands to reach his goal. It wasn't necessarily an unusual thing to do when one man lay sprawled on top of another in a state of excitement, but something about the artlessness of it, perhaps, conveyed a disturbing kind of clarity.

Arthur collected Merlin's hands by a few stray fingers and moved them up to rest over Merlin's heart. "The other night, when you tried to burn down the castle… That wasn't the first time you did that, is it?"

"Burn down the castle?"

"No, the other part." Arthur frowned at the glazed look on Merlin's face, and it finally struck him just how incapacitated Merlin was just then, whether from the earlier drink or stress or exhaustion, the aftermath of the fit he'd had earlier that same day, or something less tangible. "Okay." Arthur slid off of him and over onto his side, dangerously near the edge of the mattress but secure enough. When Merlin took the opportunity to reach for his groin again, Arthur trapped his wrists together and pressed them aside. "Let's just sleep now."

Merlin grunted, attempting weakly to break Arthur's hold, and protested, "I know how to take care of it."

Arthur faltered at the way he said that, because it hinted at something that Arthur wasn't sure he wanted to know. ...some servants do that. A lot of them. Sometimes, because they have to... "No." Arthur tried to be gentle but firm about it. "This was a mistake; I said just sleeping tonight, and I should have honored that."

"But you have to – just do it! I said you could."

"I don't want your duty," Arthur snapped.

Merlin flopped back and his breath shuddered in soft gasps for a moment while Arthur held his wrists and watched to make sure that this was just a benign disorientation – just drink, probably, and the late hour. However confused Merlin was, he didn't give any sign of losing his wits or going vacant as he had that afternoon, staring at the medicine shelves.

Arthur let himself relax. He rolled Merlin forcibly onto his side, facing out into the room, and reached down to drag up the quilt folded over the end of the bed. Then he curled like a spoon against Merlin's back and admonished, "Go to sleep."

Rather rudely, and crass in a way Arthur wasn't used to hearing from anyone as king, except by accidental eavesdropping in taverns or barracks or war tents, Merlin protested, "You're still hard – I can feel it. You could fin – "

"Merlin, I swear to god, if you offer yourself up again like some onanistic tool, I will hit you. That is _not_ what I want you for."

Merlin shrank beneath Arthur's arm, the tone of his voice an apology when he replied, "You'll be uncomfortable."

"Just go to sleep."

Merlin shivered for a good long while after Arthur settled them both in for the night, and after a long and awkward silence, Merlin stirred and spoke mostly into the pillow, words smashed and slurred into goose down. "I shouldn't've offered."

Arthur gave an exasperated sigh and tried to mash Merlin to sleep by pushing the side of his face briefly into the pillow. "No, I took advantage. This is on me. You're not yourself right now. You're drunk and just...so am I, and I wasn't thinking, but I should know better. You don't tell me no when it matters."

"Made a mess," Merlin mumbled back.

"Yes, well, you wouldn't be you otherwise."

Merlin didn't chuckle as expected. Instead, he sniffed, "S'true."

Oh god. He really was drunk, and now they were at the maudlin part of the evening. "Shut up, Merlin."

"Dunno what I'm doing half the time. Gaius'd do eyebrows at me. S'all a cock-up."

Arthur thumped his forehead against the pillow, and then repeated it twice more for good measure.

Merlin shuffled around and then slurred, "What are you doing?"

Luckily, going silent seemed to make Merlin forget that there was anything going on behind him, and he sagged into the mattress. Arthur fervently hoped that this was a prelude to unconsciousness.

Just as Arthur felt his limbs go heavy with impending sleep, Merlin sighed, "I don't know who I am anymore. I thought it was destiny. But it's not, is it? And I'm just a fool. Or my own great uncle maybe."

One of Arthur's eyes slit open, narrowed and cranky now. "You're _Merlin_. Can't that be enough?"

"No one else seems to think so."

Arthur wondered if there were a list of people somewhere who he could kill to make this all better. Or at least _quieter_. But Merlin liked people in general; he probably wouldn't appreciate the gesture. "I think so, and I'm the king, so my word is law."

"Your law says I should be dead."

Arthur curled a bit, realized he was shielding himself from nothing like an idiot, and then snapped, "Then I have stupid laws. _Go to sleep_ _._ "

Merlin eventually drifted into a restless slumber plagued by muttering and odd muscle tics. Arthur tried to quiet his mind, but it wasn't easy, and every time Merlin moved in his arms he felt an unaccustomed pang of guilt for letting it get this bad. He had known that Merlin wasn't doing well for over a year now, and he knew that the shaking sickness exacted a price, and he knew how many shocks had been heaped at Merlin's feet just in the past week. But he hadn't _noticed_. Because Merlin was always the one who stood steadfast – the one who spread optimism and who always seemed cheerful about his own misfortunes, ready with a joke or a grin or a smartass comment. Always the strong one Arthur leaned on.

Arthur traced the chain around Merlin's neck to where the Pendragon crest laid loose on the pillow near Merlin's collarbone, thinking of the cryptic words of dragons and strange women in caves, and Guinevere smiling at him in some kind of gratitude as the gasping life left her body and Arthur let his back be the last part she saw of him as he shouted and pled with the light to save his friend until he couldn't tell anymore where the screaming was coming from – himself, the mandrake things, or Merlin clawing at him to get free.

Eventually, an unpleasant sleep took him like that, and he dreamed in broken scenes scattered through a murky backdrop of dissatisfaction and shame.

* * *

" _I am indebted to you, Merlin. I had become...confused. It is once again clear to me that those who practice magic are evil and dangerous, and that is thanks to you." Arthur turned his head enough to be able to see Merlin wavering in the background by the table._

 _Merlin's mouth worked silently as his face split open on a grin that looked wrong. Grotesque. "Glad I could help."_

 _Arthur watched Merlin's eyes lower and unfocus, the smile short-lived and fading into something like shock. Numbness. He didn't stay long after that, and Arthur couldn't understand why it upset him so much to have Arthur acknowledge that he'd been right._

* * *

 _"All I know is that, for your many faults, you are honest and brave and truehearted, and one day you will be the greatest king this land has ever known."_

* * *

 _"I forgive you. You're allowed to be happy."_

~TBC~


	9. Chapter 9

_**The Fires of Idirsholas**_

 _"Morgana, please, just do as I say." And then Arthur dismissed her from his mind._

 _Later, he would realize that it was the last thing – the very last thing – that he ever said to her. The real her, for all that her body continued and her voice never faded. The next time he spoke to her, he addressed a mad sham of a woman wearing his sister's face, though of course it was months still before he knew it._

 _"I failed, father. I should have protected Morgana."_

 _"No," Uther countered. His fingers gripped and worried at the jeweled string wound through his fingers, the only part of Morgana left on the floor in the wake of Morgause's whirlwind. "That was my duty." He turned away, still speaking low and to the floor, or maybe to the jewels in his hand. "Her loss will forever be on my conscience. Not yours." The proclamation fell flat, directed aside and away so that Uther didn't even have to look at the reflection of Arthur's face in the mirror when he said it._

 _It was how Arthur knew that it was a lie, however well meant or sincere it may actually have been. Even Uther knew that his words would never be enough to absolve Arthur of his guilt. Perhaps it was that which kept Arthur from looking too closely at the Morgana that came back to them. Or perhaps he was just a fool._

* * *

Arthur came awake gradually, his head a stuffy mess, to the sound of lowered voices in the room with him. Several of them. His mind blanked at first and he fisted the strange tatty quilt draped over his bare shoulder, taking in the odd quality of light on his eyelids, and the smell like a dried-out garden. And Merlin. His pillow smelled of Merlin. Well, that was all right then. Except that quick on the heels of that, the memory of his behavior the previous night came bubbling to the surface like a hot spring. He wasn't sure if the flush that bloomed in prickles over his whole body was more shame or simple embarrassment. He had almost, _almost_ , done something irreversible.

Arthur blinked his eyes open to find a privacy screen unfolded across a large of swath of his vision. He had no idea where it came from, since Merlin didn't have one of those, and then he tried to concentrate his muzzily whirring thoughts on the conversation going on beyond that. He didn't recognize the deeper voice, a man, but it was using medical words here and there so Arthur assumed this was the daily meeting between Merlin and the interim physician. Hubert. Maybe. Arthur really needed to make a point of memorizing that man's name at some point. Once Arthur began registering words, though, it became clear that they weren't talking about patients or rounds. They were talking about Merlin himself.

"I don't like the frequency of late. They shouldn't come so close together."

Arthur started to shift but the mattress ropes creaked softly, so he stopped. He wanted to listen, not end up with a censored summary later.

Merlin replied by changing the subject. "These are the tinctures for Lady Mallory. You can't give them straight to her, though; she'll use them too often. You have to give them to her maid, Brinna."

A long sigh answered that. "You have to deal with this."

Something clinked sharp against wood, and then Merlin hissed, "I _am_ dealing with it!"

Arthur shifted again and let the quilt slip off his back to puddle behind him.

"You are ignoring my advice, your own mentor's advice – "

"I'm not – I'm handling it."

"Are you? I was at your dinner last night. You were drunk, Merlin. You know you shouldn't consume ale or mead, or wine – nothing fermented."

Merlin must have slammed something against the worktop again, and then he replied in an aggrieved tone, "It was _one night_."

"One is all it takes."

George's voice chimed in at that moment. "I will ensure that my lord Merlin is appropriately hydrated from now on."

There was another thump, and Merlin growled, "Will you stop managing me?"

It was Hubert who retorted, "If you would bother to manage _yourself_ , you would have some peace from the rest of us."

Merlin evidently ignored that, or perhaps he made that pinched face he was so good at, like the arse end of a cat. "George, please stop straightening things. In fact, never touch anything in here ever again. Arthur will want his breakfast as soon as he wakes up; he's unbearable when he has to wait. Can you just… Yes, thank you." A moment later, Merlin added, "And don't bring him any pickled eggs; he'll need another new belt."

Giant gangly fishwife, Arthur thought. He shimmied over the mattress until he could drop his bare feet silently to the floor, and then he rubbed hard over his face as if to scrub off the vestiges of sleep. The door to the physician's quarters opened and then closed again, presumably evidence that George was off to the kitchens.

Arthur felt awful and in need of both a mild hangover remedy and more sleep, but weak light already pooled against the window ledges above him, and he knew that he would sleep better in the forest that night; he always did. He could save his fatigue for that, and in the meantime, drag his heavy limbs about for a while longer. Arthur shook his head to clear the sleep induced cobwebs and briefly contemplated just how serious of an apology he owed for his transgression the night before. He'd broken his word, after all. That had not been _just sleeping_ , and he'd nearly taken advantage of an inebriated friend.

After a brief silence, Hubert took up his cause again, but in a purposefully modulated tone of voice. "You are the King's Physician now. Have you any idea the trust with which you have been gifted?"

Merlin sighed and mumbled snidely, "I am well aware of the honor bestowed upon me." Except that he said _honor_ like a pejorative.

"Then act like it. You have a duty – a responsibility to the crown. You are effectively the most powerful person in Camelot now, even above the throne. Do you understand that?"

What a curious thing to say. Arthur dropped his hands and squinted at the privacy screen as if he might be able to bore his sight through it.

Hubert continued, apparently over Merlin's irritated grumbling and potion concocting, because the sounds of that continued. "The trust placed in you is second to no other. You have complete and unfettered access to the king. If you were of a mind, you are the best placed person in the whole of Albion to assassinate him without rousing any suspicion for yourself, and yet he trusts you never to do that."

Arthur blinked because that was an odd way to bestow a compliment or to motivate someone, and yet in a way, the perspective of it could not have been more direct. He thought briefly of his paternal uncle, a man he had never met, allowing a strange physician access to his tent and dying for it.

Merlin shuffled partly into view, his movements angry as he faffed about with a few bottles and sifted through the detritus on the worktop, his back to Arthur. He struggled for a moment to stuff a cork in one of the bottles, and then pointed out, "I have been in that position already for a decade."

"Yes, but now it is acknowledged, and everyone _knows_. You are not just a manservant. You can do more damage now than you ever could before."

"That's debatable. Why are we even having this conversation?" Merlin gave up on the bottles and turned to face Hubert, his form a lean profile against the backdrop of the chamber. Arthur thanked the shadows of early dawn for hiding the fact that he was awake. Merlin continued with, "Nothing's changed. I have the same responsibility I had before."

"It's not just his wellbeing and keeping now; it's his _life_ you safeguard as his personal physician."

Merlin's mouth opened, and he scoffed a few times as if he couldn't figure out how to address this absurdity. It took Arthur a moment to realize that Merlin reacted that way because he had always considered Arthur's life to be his to safeguard. It really wasn't new. After shaking his head, still lost for words, Merlin went back to fishing corks off the worktop.

Hubert sighed, and Arthur watched him wander into sight past the edge of the privacy screen, an older, somewhat portly man of salted hair and a frame that still carried well. He poked at the containers on the shelf and selected one before disappearing again into the blocked part of the room. "How can I stress to you the importance of looking after yourself properly? Should I point out that if you don't, you will leave your king vulnerable to attack?"

Merlin's bottling motions slowed and he eventually rested the sides of his palms on the worktop, a trio of small vials still clutched in one hand, and leaned on them. His head dropped down below his shoulders and Arthur watched the line of his back curve, hip cocked to shift his weight to one foot. Softly, with blunt edges to his words, Merlin demanded, "You think I don't know that?"

"And yet you continue to use yourself ill." Hubert shuffled back into sight, though only halfway, and looked awkward for a bit before sort of patting Merlin's back. "It is a small thing to ensure that you eat proper meals at proper times, avoid vice, and get enough rest. Good rest." He was obviously attempting to comfort, but for a physician, he was surprisingly bad at it. Hubert cleared his throat and backed away, out of sight.

Merlin tipped his head to watch him retreat before shaking it and straightening to resume bottling potions.

"There is something else," Hubert went on, "which we should discuss. I believe that it may be a trigger for these fits, but I am afraid that it's a delicate subject."

Merlin glanced up briefly, but Arthur recognized the disinterest of his stance. "Hm?"

"Your…magic?"

Merlin's movements ground to a halt, and then he fixated on Hubert. It was frightening, almost – the focus of it, the sudden stillness of his body. Predators looked like that before they attacked. Merlin had looked at Guinevere like that toward the end.

With care and obvious unease, Hubert said, "I promise you, I have no interest in exposing your _situation_. I wouldn't bring it up at all now if it weren't important."

"You're mistaken," Merlin told him.

Still out of sight, Hubert replied softly, "We both know I'm not. Did you think that you could cure my gout and not at least leave me with questions?"

Merlin blinked, tossed the rest of the room an obscure look, and then grimaced at the bottles in his hand. "You never had gout."

"You also have a strange affinity for poultices."

"There's a whole shelf of books on how to make those." He jabbed a finger at said books. "Help yourself."

"And the ulcers? The bulbs and cankers and bile-filled growths inside your patients' bodies that miraculously disappear when you treat them?"

"Gaius taught me well."

"Gaius never had that kind of skill to teach." Hubert sighed, long and quiet, and then said, "Give me some credit, Merlin; I am an experienced physician. I know gout when I see it. I know an ulcerative growth. I know incurable illness. And I've seen you practice your craft. You are very good as a physician, but there are things you successfully treat that give you away. People you shouldn't cure."

"I am not a _healer_." Merlin stared at him, his face blank in a way that put Arthur in mind of a craggy hillside. Sharp and hard to navigate. Treacherous. Finally, Merlin drew a breath that shifted his entire body and said, "What about my magic?"

Arthur had to blink a few times to recall the original thread of that topic – Hubert's purpose in bringing it up in the first place.

"Your use of it may be causing problems."

Arthur took that opportunity to shove to his feet and emerge behind Merlin. "What do you mean?"

Hubert paled as Arthur came into view and then he fumbled for a knife on the worktop before freezing, eyes wide. "Sire. I…" He glanced at Merlin just standing there looking at Arthur, and firmed up his resolve. Arthur watched, fascinated, as Hubert took a few clumsy (terrified) steps forward, gaze fixed on Arthur as if on a bear as he reached to tug Merlin away from him – as if he could avoid Arthur's notice of it by doing it gradually enough.

Merlin looked down at the hand pulling his sleeve, brow wrinkling as he also noticed the knife in Hubert's other hand. "No, no." Merlin extracted his sleeve from Hubert's grasp and took the knife away as well, smooth and calm as Hubert continued gaping at Arthur. "He knows. It's alright." Merlin set the knife aside and glanced at Arthur, his cheeks coloring in embarrassment as he chivied Hubert away from the knife and broke his wide-eyed stare. "The king knows already."

"He…what?" Hubert sagged a bit on his feet and then straightened up, indignant before giving way to something less defined. "I beg your forgiveness, sire. For the…blade." He shuffled and clasped his hands over his stomach. "I didn't know that you were…" He fluttered both hands at the privacy screen, wrung them together, and kept trying to explain. "There. I was simply concerned. For Merlin. Sire."

In spite of himself, Arthur's resolve broke, and he laughed. "Merlin, you have an admiration club."

"What?" Merlin's earlier embarrassment gave way and he glared at Arthur. "I do not."

"Do too." Juvenile, but he didn't care. "Geoffrey, George, Gwaine, Leon, and now him. The list of people willing to challenge me on your behalf is impressive." Arthur grinned up one side of his mouth and then looked to Hubert. "No worries; I rather like watching him ruffle up like an offended cat."

Merlin immediately ruffled up like an offended cat.

"Makes me happy," Arthur reported, treating Merlin to an indulgent smile.

"Your head's gone fusty," Merlin shot back.

Arthur nodded. "Probably. I still keep you around, after all. God knows why; you do nothing but insult me." Arthur then proceeded to ignore him and addressed Hubert, his mood going grey. "You mentioned Merlin's magic as a contributing factor to his condition. Do you think it's like a poison or something?" Arthur rolled his hand through the air, searching for the right words, and finally settled on, "Has it gone bad?"

"Because all magic corrupts eventually?" Merlin curled his lip at that. "That would be the first place you'd go."

Arthur gave him a sharp look, but only to cover the hurt he wasn't sure he had any right to feel. "I'm only asking if there's something about magic that could hurt you to use it in your condition."

For a moment, Merlin merely stared at him, face closed, and then he dropped his gaze and fidgeted with a few corks left over from bottling, clearly self-conscious about what he'd said. He did take a moment to fish a bottle of murky green-brown glop out from the middle of the workspace, though, and thrust it at Arthur without meeting his eyes. Hangover remedy. Arthur murmured a gruff thanks but didn't drink it yet.

Hubert saved them both from further awkwardness, but he sounded as if he would rather gather the wounded from an active field of battle than try to diffuse this. "I mean the opposite, actually." He glanced between Arthur's open face and Merlin's closed one before addressing the latter. "You stifle it."

Merlin merely looked at him, incredulous, scratched at the scruff on his cheek, and went back to trying to fit a cork into one of the tiny bottles clutched in his fist.

Hubert swallowed, flicking a side-eyed glance at the way Merlin didn't seem interested in either of them anymore. Then he gave Arthur an awkward look as if to make certain he wouldn't be run through in a moment for sympathizing with a sorcerer before giving in and addressing Merlin plainly. "You don't use it the way you should. Someone like you, that is to say. Suppressing it the way you do is not natural. It's not healthy."

Arthur blinked at Hubert, then at Merlin's pointedly turned back, his shoulders set in a shifty, uneven line. So that wasn't news to him. Arthur directed himself to Hubert again. "Not the first one, but the other two fits I've witnessed were both like that. There was a smell like lightning. Magic, but nothing came of it."

Hubert's frame unwound at that, finally, and he nodded.

Merlin shook his head, though. "I've been suppressing my magic all of my life. It's never been a problem before."

"No, but your condition is new." Hubert glanced an apology at Arthur and then told Merlin, "You are not just any sorcerer or warlock. You may not even be human, entirely."

Merlin muttered under his breath, something like _not you too_ plus some profanity, and stalked over to rifle through various baskets of fresh herbs.

Hubert pressed, "I don't say that to be cruel. Your magic is the kind druids talk of in tales – it's fae, Merlin. It's not something that _men_ have."

Arthur frowned at the other man. "What do you mean, fae?"

"Innate," Hubert admitted reluctantly. "Natural, sire. The kind that comes with instinct, the same as flight to a bird. It is not mortal magic – not of man. The old religion was always rife with prophecies that never went anywhere. Fantastic things. But magic is real, and magical creatures do exist. We have all seen them here in Camelot before. So I don't find it completely beyond the pale that Merlin may be something like that, or somehow carry it in his blood."

Arthur peered at Merlin to see how he might be taking this notion, but Merlin merely sighed as he came back across the room and perched himself on the edge of the worktop. "None of that matters," Merlin told them, finally engaged in the discussion. "I can't just let things out. You have no idea how bad that would be."

"You are not like other users of magic," Hubert insisted again. "You don't call it up – you don't even speak it all the time. It's just _in_ you. Always. Like air. If you don't find a way to release it when it builds, then I fear things will only get worse, like putting a cork in a kettle spout and then hanging it over the fire. You have much more anger now than you used to have, and it sits closer to the surface; Gaius even spoke to me of it once, in concern for your state of mind. Not the magic, he never revealed that. But the temper – you become angry or frustrated more easily, and in a more volatile manner. It affects your control and equilibrium. I imagine that your hold on your magic suffers in tandem. An increased temper is, of course, a normal effect for some to suffer after taking multiple heavy blows to the head, and you are fortunate in that your moments of rage are not indiscriminate or uncontrollable, as those of some men are. You are not irreparably damaged, but you _are_ changed. The way that you reign yourself in is not healthy. It is oppressive." Hubert cleared his throat, and then shifted his feet, visibly uncomfortable.

Personally, Arthur thought that Merlin's temper had more to do with recent events than anything organic or injury related, but he held his tongue on that point. Until recently, he had not been paying attention, after all. Gaius had been.

Merlin took a careful breath, and then made a concerted attempt at keeping his tone understated as he informed Hubert, "If I 'release' any kind of magical tension when it swells up like that, I could kill someone." His eyes flickered to Arthur at that, wide and regretful.

Arthur offered him a small, private smile, and then turned back to Hubert. "We'll figure something out."

"Arthur - _sire_ \- "

"Enough, Merlin. I'm sure we can find something for you to do with it."

"It's not finding something innocuous that matters," Merlin pressed. He pushed away from the worktop and moved closer, as if his proximity could somehow radiate comprehension into Arthur. "It happens when I'm angry, or frustrated, or scared – not when I'm able to just wait for a quiet watch, walk out to the fields conveniently before the sun is up, check around for guards, and make a month's worth of wheat for you on the sly."

Hubert started. "You can grow a wheat field before sunrise?"

Arthur grinned over at him, stupid and glowing with misplaced pride, he knew, but he didn't care. "Merlin can grow whole trees with ripe fruit on them out of a table in the dark."

Merlin pursed his lips and admonished, "I was also trying to set your bedroom on fire at the time."

"I know," Arthur agreed, still cheery. "I was in it."

Hubert just looked horrified at that. "All the more reason to find a way to siphon your magic somehow."

Merlin's body sidled in a wary fashion even though he didn't move his feet.

Arthur nodded, though he didn't necessarily want to give the impression that he and Hubert were teaming up against Merlin. "That night that your magic spilled out? You didn't have a fit."

Merlin narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't mean anything. I'd just had one earlier, hadn't I?"

"Well…" Arthur frowned. "Yes." And then all three of them just stared back and forth for a moment.

Breaking the stalemate with a discomfited _ahem_ , Hubert moved over to a bench and rummaged in a canvas bag sitting there. "Until you can make some kind of arrangement, I have something that may help." He pulled out a small wooden box that clinked, followed by a parchment envelop. "I must caution you not to rely overmuch on this, however; it is a temporary solution at best." He flipped up the lid and showed them a collection of about a dozen tiny glass vials, each holding maybe a teaspoon of liquid. "Since we haven't been able to locate the plants that Gaius procured, I used my own stock. I've seeds as well, but I cannot lay claim to any sort of green thumb, so they're of little use to me." He set a parchment seed packet upright between two bottles on the worktop. "However, it seems I needn't worry if you're proficient with earth magic. They need a warm and moist environment, and don't tolerate deviation well, according to the man I bought them from. All I ask is a supply of the cuttings for my own work. Leaves and buds." Hubert eyed Merlin speculatively until Merlin nodded, then turned to Arthur. "These should be used sparingly; I've no idea if the body builds a tolerance to the oil over time, but I've tested it on several street dogs and it seems safe enough. If you're certain that a fit is coming on, the contents of one vial should be placed under the tongue, not swallowed. If you're unable to get past grit teeth, then do your best to smear it along the gums." He demonstrated with a finger in his own mouth, though it was probably unnecessary to clarify that.

Arthur picked up a vial and frowned. "Street dogs? So you don't know if it's safe for a man to use?"

Hubert prevaricated for a moment, and then replied, completely in earnest, "I would never suggest that Merlin use it if I thought that it might harm him." He eyed Arthur and added, wry, "I'm relatively certain I wouldn't live long enough to regret it if it did."

"No, you wouldn't." Arthur eyed him back and smiled like a summer day as Hubert realized how his attempt at levity had failed.

"Arthur!"

Arthur straightened up and shrugged at Merlin. "What? He wouldn't."

Merlin widened his eyes as if trying to make Arthur apologize for being congenial.

"He's obviously a very intelligent man," Arthur placated, "and I am agreeing with him. That's all. And if I didn't get to him fast enough myself, a half dozen angry knights would, so." He waved his hand to convey the complete destruction of Hubert's person that would result from that. "You know how they are."

"Oh, for gods' sakes." Merlin threw up his hands and stalked off to finish collecting potions and medicines in his carrying basket.

Arthur grinned when he caught _meddling knuckleface_ from in amidst Merlin's other vaguely word-like muttering, and then let his expression shift subtly into something like predation as Hubert bowed and hurried out. The man evaporated from Arthur's notice along with the shadow of him retreating down the corridor, and Arthur took a breath before shutting the door to give them privacy. He rolled his shoulders and leaned back against the door to watch Merlin shuttle bottles around with sharp, pert movements. "I owe you an apology."

Merlin fumbled into stillness, ticked as he absorbed that, and then set everything down so that he could face Arthur unencumbered. And then he just waited, which was not what Arthur expected him to do. Usually, Merlin gave him some kind of sass or humor off of which Arthur could downplay the humility involved in a scene like this. An insult. Immediate forgiveness. Anything. He looked exhausted, though, and hungover. And something about the pinch around his eyes seemed wrung out.

"Did you sleep well enough?" It wasn't what Arthur had half-planned to say, but Merlin looked so worn that it came out anyway.

Merlin blinked a few times, sniffed, and then looked away without answering.

"Right." Arthur pushed off from the door and approached in a meandering pattern through the perpetual mess of the room. "Look, last night – "

"I have to make rounds," Merlin interrupted, still facing anything that wasn't Arthur. "And if we're going on a hunt, there are some other things I'll need to prepare for Hubert before we leave."

Arthur swallowed and thought hard about overriding that or commenting on how it wasn't proper to interrupt his king when he was trying to apologize, or to imply that Merlin had better things to do with his time than listen to said king at all. Instead, he elected at the last moment to remain silent on all of that. It wasn't like he'd figured out what to say anyway. "Of course. I don't want to keep you."

The discontent must have shown in his voice because Merlin relented and turned around, his medicine case open in his hands. "I appreciate you caring, Arthur. I do. It's just…a lot. And I don't want to disappoint you. Or Gaius." He grimaced after that and set the case down again, but his hands fidgeted at themselves in lieu of something to hold. Then he tapped his chest, and Arthur noticed the shape of the Pendragon crest under his shirt where Merlin smoothed a hand over it.

Arthur watched his hand rub at the hidden crest and offered, "These past few days have been a lot for you. I understand. And I'm probably not making it any easier."

Merlin sucked his lips between his teeth and then looked up. "I know you're lonely."

" _Lonely_? I'm not _lonely_ , Merlin. I'm the _king_. I'm – "

" – lonely. And making me into some disinherited prince so that you can have an equal peer is not how to fix this."

Arthur wrinkled his nose, as if he smelled something foul. And he did – all of these herbs and medicines, and the soot of the fire, and blasted Merlin himself, the insulting little snot. "That's not what it's about. You _are_ a noble. People should know to treat you as my equal."

"I'll never be your equal."

Arthur inhaled sharply, but Merlin's eyes, when he met Arthur's, didn't show whatever it was that Arthur had meant to refute. They wrinkled at the corners, his whole face uplifted and fond, as if Arthur had made an endearing gaffe, or were teasing him in good fun. Arthur's indignation fluttered about in his chest cavity and died in a burst of hollow heat somewhere near his diaphragm. It wasn't a slur against himself, Merlin's assertion. It was just that old faith – that stupid, blind, utterly terrifying notion that Arthur was someone great. Someone special. Someone better than he actually was. "Merlin…"

"I'll be your friend no matter what, you know. You don't have to make me a noble if that's what you're after."

A great gust of air sloughed from Arthur's lungs. "Yes, you're my friend. God knows, I've tried to stop you from being that."

Merlin chuckled. "I'm more stubborn than you."

"You're an idiot," Arthur said. Then he softened. "But you're a loyal one."

Merlin made a hmph sound, smiling, and then glanced down and repeated, "I don't want to disappoint you."

"Who said anything about disappointing me?"

"No one, it's just – "

Arthur watched him, waiting for the rest of that, but Merlin merely shook his head and appeared to bite his tongue. So Arthur pressed, "Just what?"

As if it exploded out of him, Merlin said, "It's just that I _have_! That's half of what I do, you've said so yourself – clumsy and slow, and late to your chambers, and I scare the deer on hunts and don't know my place – I can't be everything you want. Court physician and all-powerful sorcerer and body guard and healer and councilman and – and heir to Dyfedd… Arthur…"

Arthur took a calming breath and recalled that bloody dragon the night before, accusing Arthur of trying to remake Merlin in his own image. It rankled, and it burned with a kind of shame he didn't like feeling, but he understood. He understood so well. How long had Arthur lived under his father's expectations and unfollowed footsteps? Under someone else's demands of what kind of man he should be? "I don't want to disappoint you either."

Merlin started to cock his head, but only made it partway before he blinked and went still.

"Once and Future King?" Arthur prompted, his mouth a wry gash in his face. "Greatest king Albion has ever known?" He paused, took one step closer, and added, his voice far shakier now, "Good man? Not like my father?"

Merlin drew a startled breath, his face a series of denials, and then he said, "But you are those things. You _can_ be."

"See?" Arthur raised a hand, hesitated, and then ran his thumb over Merlin's shirt, where his heart would be, and where Arthur's crest rested instead, hidden. "How easy it is to disappoint someone who thinks so much of you."

Merlin swallowed. "You never thought much of me."

Arthur nodded, but he shut his eyes when he did it because it was true, and he didn't want to see Merlin's face when he acknowledged it. "You were beneath my notice, yes." He raised his head and studied the way Merlin ruthlessly kept his own face blank. "And I'm trying to correct that."

Merlin snorted a weak attempt at laughter, but the glitter in his eyes was genuine. "Overcompensating much? You could have just sent me a note, you know."

Arthur huffed at him and dropped his hand. It missed the warmth immediately. "Shut up, Merlin."

"I mean, normally, kings show gratitude to their servants with days off or coin purses or a horse – "

"I already gave you a horse."

" – but here comes Arthur, the biggest prat who ever lived – "

"In fact, I gave you two horses."

" – chip on his shoulder the size of Glevun – "

"Hey!"

" – with a spare kingdom he dug up at the library. Who are you trying to impress, anyway?"

Arthur spluttered, indignant. "Well not you, clearly."

"Mmm." Merlin wrinkled his whole face up the way he had used to do when younger, when teasing the prince was something Arthur still couldn't believe any servant would dare do. "I'm a little impressed by you."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, not really trying to appear threatening.

Of course, Merlin saw right through it and laughed, a bright sound even while something about it seemed reserved, or maybe well faked.

"Don't you have medicines to deliver or something?"

Merlin just gave him a knowing smirk and turned back to his worktable.

Arthur watched him for a while, and then thumped down on the bench at the small table where two old, worn and simple wooden place settings lay neat and tidy on a bit of cloth. "I meant what I said last night."

"About what?"

"Don't play stupid." Arthur scratched a fingernail over a snag of loose and fraying thread. "Not about this. I know I was drunk, but – "

"Arthur, no." Merlin was at the table now, standing rather than sitting. "No. We can pretend it never happened, and you can – "

"What?" Arthur demanded. "Go on as if I don't feel – "

"You _don't_ feel." Merlin stabbed his finger down onto the table near Arthur's elbow. "You don't. Guinevere – "

The thump of the door startled them both to a guilty silence, Arthur's because another moment would have seen him yelling yet again when he really didn't want the moment to devolve into that, and Merlin's because…. Well, Arthur couldn't guess at the source of Merlin's expression, actually.

George's feet slowed about ten paces into the room, as if walking upstream in a river, carrying a basket. "My apologies, sire. My lord." He eyed the both of them, squared off as they were, even though nothing in their postures was particularly provocative. "Shall I wait outside?"

Merlin flared his nostrils, and Arthur shook his head because it was probably better for them both that they stopped this argument now. It would only devolve into shouting otherwise; Arthur could feel it buzzing against his ribcage, the desire to raise his voice until Merlin capitulated, or called him mean names and stormed out. "No, we were just finished."

Merlin snorted at him, but at George's admonishing look, he merely went back to packing things into a carryall.

It was extremely satisfying to watch Merlin argue with George a few minutes later about who needed help dressing who. Arthur hurried himself into his own neat pile of clothes left folded pristinely on the breakfast table while they bickered just to enjoy the look on Merlin's face when he turned around, found Arthur already dressed, and then had no more excuses against submitting to George's annoyingly chipper assistance. Arthur planned on enjoying immensely the spectacle of Merlin dealing with an obsessive manservant of his own. There was a lot of hand slapping involved. For his own health, Arthur made sure he was only laughing silently, and only when Merlin wasn't looking.

"I saw that," Merlin told him as he gave George's hand one last smack and fixed his own neckerchief.

Arthur retorted, "You're imagining things."

"Will there be anything else, my lords?" George produced two neat little sacks out of thin air and added, "I took the liberty of preparing portable breakfast foods, as I know that my lord Merlin is in a hurry to make his deliveries, but if you would prefer, sire, I would be happy to arrange a plate for you to sit and eat at your leisure."

Merlin snatched one of the sacks and groused, "You brought him the itchy tunic." Then he started out of the room, paused, mumbled, "Thanks," and rushed out the door, laden down with medicines.

Arthur stood there like a toadstool for another few heartbeats, shrugged, and accepted his own sack with a tiny incline of his head. "George?"

George frowned and went straight like a poker. "Sire."

"Merlin managed to wander out in the middle of the night last night, still drunk, when he should have been sleeping it off safe in his bed. Not to mention that he shouldn't have been drunk in the first place, which would have been nice to know beforehand. Did you consult with Hubert as I requested yesterday? Do you understand the requirements of his condition?"

"Of course, sire." George frowned. "It is an integral aspect of my new duties; I would not neglect it."

"And yet he got pissed and escaped you," Arthur pointed out. "I found him stumbling around the lower town, right before he wandered out into the forest. As much as I despair of Merlin's complete lack of serving skills, he at least never lost track of me, no matter how carefully I snuck about. You need to know his whereabouts, always. If that means you sleep in the corridor because he thinks he doesn't need a servant in his quarters with him, then that is what you do." He didn't mean to be all that harsh, but George was not a weeping maiden in need of careful treatment. And Arthur remembered Merlin's words the night before as much as he did the vacant nothing in his eyes toward the end. He didn't want occasion to have to see that again, not if there were an easy diversion from it. Arthur passed over two of the little medical oil phials with a hard look. "Keep these on your person at all times, and make sure that Hubert instructs you in their use."

George accepted the medicines, his expression grave. "Yes, sire."

"I will expect better attention to his health from now on. If he doesn't eat a meal on time, you will inform me. If he goes to the tavern like an idiot, you will inform me. I appointed you to him specifically because I want him _safe_ and _cared for_. And he wasn't last night. Do I make myself clear?"

The expected immediate assurance never came. Instead, George cocked his head and studied Arthur carefully, like a brass candelabra against which he was formulating a polishing plan. "With respect, sire, I will not inform you. My Lord Merlin is my responsibility, and as you ordered, I answer to him. I will of course redouble my efforts with regards to his care, as I admit that I was not prepared for the unique challenge he presents. But I will not inform on his activities to you."

Arthur merely stared at him for a moment as if struck. Then he backed down the way he would from an equal on the field, physically giving ground out of respect. "I see. Of course, you're right. My apologies, George."

George bowed, perfectly proper and precise, and then tucked the phials into a breast pocket. "None are required, sire. I realize how few you trust, and the depth of your care. I will not attempt to reassure you of my integrity, but I do endeavor to earn the position you gave me."

Arthur nodded. "I will not claim that it pleases me."

"Of course not, sire. However, I am forced to remind your majesty that this is precisely the arrangement you demanded of me." George passed him a waterskin from out of nowhere and announced, "A fine lemon tea, chilled with a hint of mint to compliment your meal."

Arthur curled his mouth to one side, because however proper George was, he had essentially told Arthur to go screw himself, and like it. "Chilled tea? That's new."

"Cooled in the river to offer a crisp and refreshing finish for the discerning palette." George clicked – actually _clicked_ – his heels together. "If that will be all, sire, I will respectfully withdraw to commence my duties for the day."

Arthur nodded. "I'll expect you on the hunt this afternoon."

"Very well, sire. I shall make myself ready as well."

Arthur watch George bow again and withdraw, and then glanced around the now empty chamber. "Chilled tea? Merlin would never chill tea for me." Then he snorted, gathered his sack breakfast and his hangover remedy, and left to see Leon off from the stables.

* * *

 _ **The Coming of Arthur**_

 _On the throne room floor, held down to his knees before the dais, Uther snarled and yelled at Morgause's smug and calm face, "You have no right to the throne!"_

 _And out from the shadows, she came – the caricature. "No, she does not." Pale as porcelain, lips a blood red stain on her face, and malice that even then echoed the haughtiness of a girl raised to be a princess. "But I do. I am your daughter, after all."_

 _There was a moment, months before while the whole of Camelot slept, enchanted, when Arthur naively told her, "I can always tell when you're lying." And she lifted her chin for a moment to his sword as if she thought somehow that it might be meant for her. And even in that instant, she was defiant of it. And then Arthur grinned, and set his sword aside, and said, "Don't worry."_

 _He must have suspected. He told himself that it was there all along, and he missed it, but he must have known on some level that she had gone wrong. He saw her chin lift, her eyes shutter, and the silence of her expression screaming in his face, echoing the eerie hush of a whole city._

 _"I am your daughter, after all."_

 _Arthur felt his chest go tight and hot, and his vision blurred. Beside him, Merlin…well, he didn't look shocked. The expression on his face when he glanced at Arthur seemed more like sympathy, or perhaps pity. Arthur couldn't process the disparity just then._

 _"Don't look so surprised," Morgana told Uther. And she sounded breathless. Giddy. Perhaps that was how madness started – as a dark, defiant joy – because the glint in her eye as she lorded her victory over Uther showed little in the way of sanity. "I've known for some time."_

 _Uther broke like a kindling man under her stare as Geoffrey placed the crown on her head, and like an echo, some part of Arthur's heart broke too._

Arthur sat in unaccustomed quiet on the steps leading up to the great hall, watching the midday foot traffic through the courtyard as if through a lens. No one bothered him, though he did garner a few curious looks. Various grooms and servants were gathering supplies and horses off to one side in preparation for the hunting party, and Arthur crunched absently at some candied nuts hoarded in the pocket of his surcoat. It was a decidedly unkingly thing to do, and he really didn't care. He was going on holiday in less than an hour, and while some of the hunting partygoers were less to his liking than others, Arthur intended to leave matters of state in the castle for once and just enjoy himself. He hadn't been out hunting like this in over a year. He hadn't even left the castle grounds in all that time since…

…since. The last time he properly rode out, away from the castle, he came back with his wife's dead body on one horse, and a silent, grey-faced Merlin on the other. Arthur had walked back from the cauldron. Something about that just seemed right at the time.

Arthur screwed his mouth up, lips clamped over his teeth, and tried to banish the unhappy memory. It was past, and unchangeable now, and he couldn't live in that place where the edge of pain never dulled. Guinevere would want him to get on with it, with being king. With being good at it. There were so many things Arthur wanted to do, so many things he had planned with Guinevere's help to improve the lot of the common folk: changes in trade routes; loosened restrictions on the transport of goods; a shift in how crops were grown, stored and distributed; waterworks, roadworks, opportunities for skilled laborers and tradesmen… Arthur had done nothing in over a year, and he felt like he could see that failure, that stagnation, on the faces of the common people he encountered every day. They weren't exactly disappointed in him, he thought, but they weren't singing his praise either, and it was starting to look just a little too much like pity when they averted their gazes and bowed or curtsied to him as he passed.

It was late enough in the day that Leon must have reached the great river at the halfway point to Essetir's border by now. Arthur tried to imagine what change the intervening ten years would have wrought on Hunith's face, since he'd seen her last. He couldn't quite picture it. Would she be wrinkled now? Grey? Bent or hobbled with joint disease? She would probably still smile the same, he thought. Merlin was lucky to have a mother's smile in his life, to drink in whenever he needed it. Hopefully, he remembered that through whatever anger he felt at her double life and the secrets she tried to keep.

Arthur shook himself physically, and pushed to his feet to meet the stableboy leading Hengroen across the cobblestones to join the other horses waiting to be burdened with their gear. He noticed George moving various bags and saddle rolls about near the servant's entrance to the main castle, and also Gwaine with an uncharacteristically dour look on his face as he checked through his things near a bench. No one dared pass too near to him. Another boy was struggling to lift a saddle high enough to slide it onto the back of the sweet old bay horse that Merlin normally rode for simple outings. He had named it something soft and flowery like Astrid or Aster or something. His other horse – and of course, it only just occurred to Arthur how transparent he was, all but giving his manservant not one but two horses to accommodate his differing needs – Merlin's other horse was a big black Friesian much like Arthur's own war horse, though with a less bloodthirsty temperament. It was still headstrong, but unsuited to being a proper knight's mount. And that should have been Merlin's mount for a hunting sortie; not the docile old bay.

Hengroen snorted and scuffed about at the cobblestones while Arthur checked her tack, and then noticed Llamrei, the proper Friesian horse he'd given Merlin, trotting along behind a groom in a hop step. They appeared to be looping the courtyard and part of the roadways ringing around the inner keep. As she hadn't been out much for proper work, perhaps she was just too excitable to saddle up yet. Arthur frowned at the flowery old bay horse and wondered if it were for gear or for George to ride. Did George even know how to ride?

Arthur's sour mood upon thinking of some other servant riding Merlin's horse quieted at a commotion brewing up near the great hall. When he saw two guardsmen leading a stewing, red-faced Sir Meliot out between them, he had to stifle an inappropriate laugh. He needed Meliot, whether he liked the man or not, and laughing at his embarrassment, in public, would not serve to keep Meliot happily beholden to Camelot. Not that Meliot was happy in general these days, but at least Arthur hadn't sought to shame him out of spite yet.

"Hold up, there." Arthur stepped out from behind his horse and held a hand up to stop any further dragging-about of Meliot's person. "What's going on here?"

Meliot wrenched his arms in an attempt to get free, but only escaped the grasp of one of the guards. "I will not stand for this humiliation!"

Arthur watched the spectacle for perhaps a heartbeat too long as Meliot's face turned from red to an alarming shade of puce in his fury, and then motioned at the guards to stop trying to restrain him again. "Korbin." Arthur addressed the guard he knew, because he was most likely to get an actual response there. "Explain yourselves."

Korbin twitched back from Meliot's flailing, made a face at him that Meliot thankfully failed to notice, and then inclined his head to Arthur. "Sire, we found Sir Meliot in the corridors near the vaults, in the restricted areas."

"I told you," Meliot spat, "that I saw a trespasser, and neither of you were in sight! You should be disciplined for abandoning your posts, and leaving Camelot vulnerable - "

"Sir Meliot," Arthur broke in, voice loud and sharp. "I will address the guards' behavior myself. Right now, I'd prefer to know about this trespasser, and why you were down there to see him in the first place."

Meliot ruffled up, indignant. "I will not be questioned like a common thief."

It was on the tip of Arthur's tongue to retort that in that case, he would be glad to question him like an _uncommon_ one, but he hardly needed the absolute hissy fit that would follow on that. "The vaults are restricted only to Korbin's regiment, myself, and the Court Historian. You are aware of this." Aware of the need to make peace, and quickly, Arthur offered him an out; he was more interested in the trespasser anyway. "Did you follow someone from the open areas? Did you hear something? Can you describe the man to us, or tell us where he went?"

Meliot continued to pull his disheveled clothing back into place, clearly too affronted to reply right away. Finally, he snapped, "It was dark. I didn't get a clear look, and then these two roughnecks detained me and let him get away!"

Arthur nodded and looked to Korbin. "Did you see anyone?"

Over Meliot's renewed sputtering, Korbin replied, "I'd swear there was no one else down there, sire. We were making our walking round, and we would have seen someone."

Meliot glared at the guard and hissed, "Are you calling me a liar, boy?"

It was only funny because Korbin was nearly the same age as Meliot. Arthur hid his smirk in a sudden cough and waved to dismiss the guards. "Sounds like a misunderstanding, Sir Meliot. Perhaps you saw your own shadow distorted by the torchlight." Much like Merlin did, comically often.

The guards both bowed and moved off, but Meliot sneered after them, then demanded of Arthur, "I want them punished for this humiliation. They had no right to lay hands on my person – I am a Knight."

"The guards were following my orders, to the letter," Arthur countered. "If your honor is stained, then your grievance is with me, not them. Do you wish to demand redress of me?"

Of course, it was a bluff, because no one would dare challenge the king over a matter of bodily sovereignty. But for just a moment, Meliot appeared to contemplate it, and that in itself was...interesting. Maybe Meliot's longstanding influence in Camelot was finally going to his head. "Of course not, sire." He seemed only barely penitent about it. "Sometimes, my temper gets the best of me."

Arthur nodded. "Well, no hard feelings then." He smiled, reached up to clap Meliot on the shoulder, and then let the congeniality fall from his face as he turned away. "Alright, scatter, everyone. Back to your duties." He shooed away the various knights and guards that had formed a bulwark at his back while his attention was taken with Meliot, and nodded at the various townspeople and servants also watching warily from the sidelines. "We have a hunt to get on with." He didn't hear Meliot leave, but a few minutes later, when he bothered to look, the old knight was nowhere in sight. Good.

Preparations moved along quickly after that. Knights and their squires, various guards, hunting dogs with their handlers, beaters, servants, and grooms all assembled on time, gear ready. Arthur scowled around at the distinct lack of Merlin until he saw the man hurrying around the periphery with medical supplies, looking harried and completely unsure of himself, no matter that he'd served as medic for hunting and scouting parties plenty of times before, in addition to manservant, groom and cook. Since he was relatively on time, Arthur let him be to flutter around and get flustered every time George handled something that Merlin was used to doing himself. Arthur focused on his own horse, and felt the tension ease from his shoulders like sap from a tree tap. He needed to find time for simple tasks again, things that made him happy before he was king. Solo hunts weren't a smart thing anymore, but he could visit the stables more often, tend his own horse, trim some hooves now and then if it meant feeling less out of control and isolated on his throne all of the time.

It was only after the knights and nobles started arriving at the tolling of the fourth bell that Arthur took stock of his surroundings again. He noticed the pack horses lined up in a train off to one side of the courtyard, ready to ride out as soon as the hunting party itself did so. The hunting dogs lazed about in the shade like a collection of limp furs scattered all over the place while their handlers checked food and supplies, and silenced collar bells. It was a bit of perfectly unobtrusive interaction, though, that caught Arthur's wandering eye. Merlin had his horse's reigns in his hands, and Llamrei lipped at his hair as he spoke to Gwaine. Or tried to speak, it seemed. Gwaine didn't appear very receptive to whatever Merlin was saying, and as Merlin grew more...anxious?...about it, Llamrei nipped his hair and shoulders more insistently. Merlin started patting and pushing her nose away from his head. Finally, Gwaine stopped pretending that his saddle bags needed any of his attention, and shot sideways to get into Merlin's face. Whatever he said made Merlin lean back into Llamrei's shoulder, but the words were too soft to carry.

Arthur frowned and tugged at Hengroen's bridle to lead him through the small crowd to where Merlin remained standing as Gwaine and his horse stormed away to join the other knights mounting up near the gate. As Arthur approached, Merlin shook himself like a stunned bird and began going over Llamrei's gear again. "Almost ready, sire."

"What was that all about?"

Merlin shook his head, mouth creased in that dismissive manner he tended to try on like ill-fitting clothes when he didn't want Arthur to look too closely at him. "Nothing."

"Merlin."

"It's fine. Gwaine's just cranky. Hung over."

Arthur glanced over at said knight, and found the other nobles giving Gwaine a wide and wary berth. "Is this about Eira?"

Merlin tightened a strap too much and Llamrei turned to bite at him. Just a warning, but it did stop Merlin from adjusting anything else. He sighed, scrubbed at his hair, and admitted, "He thinks I knew all along and kept it from him, but I didn't. I tried to apologize, and he called me a liar."

Arthur looked down, then away. "He'll come around. His pride's been hurt."

"I swear I didn't know," Merlin insisted, his gaze flitting around before settling on Arthur. "I would have said."

"He knows that, Merlin. But he thought he loved her."

"I know." Merlin attacked a stirrup then, and Llamrei eyed him like she was thinking about taking a chunk out of his arm.

Arthur draped Hengroen's reigns over the side of a supply cart and then herded Merlin away from his horse before a fight broke out. "Come on."

Merlin took a few hasty steps back and hissed, "What are you doing? We're in public!"

"Then move along before you embarrass yourself." Arthur shuffled him into an empty guard alcove, just barely out of sight of passersby, and then let him be for a moment. "Calm down. You're spooking the horses."

Merlin went still, breathed like he sorely wanted to hit something, and then clenched his hands at his sides. A flair of ozone invaded the closed space, burnt wind and storms, and Arthur took a step back. The air seemed to ripple with a stale breeze, and then the smell faded as quickly as it came. Arthur released a low breath and let his posture go loose again.

Finally, voice low, Merlin snapped, "You can't just do that!"

It took a moment for the indignation to set in, as Arthur was more concerned in that moment with the stifled magic and what effect it might have on Merlin. "I'm sorry, what?" It was obnoxious, and Arthur really did have better manners than that, but Merlin did tend to bring out the petty in him. "Are you telling your king how to behave?"

"Yes! I'm not your – your plaything! You can't just herd me around like cattle, and shove me into beds, and – "

Arthur cut him off by the expedient means of putting his hand over Merlin's mouth. It wasn't exactly bound to make things better, but Merlin was at least fuming silently now. "If you get on a _warhorse_ in this mood, she will either throw you, or harass the horse in front of her in the line until someone gets kicked."

Merlin's nostril's flared, a hot blast of air against Arthur's fingers, and then he very deliberately stepped away from Arthur's hand. "You don't get to manhandle me and take liberties just because you're the bloody king."

"Liberties?" Arthur scoffed. "When have I ever – "

"When have you _not_?" Merlin snorted. "That's practically all you do! Come here, Merlin. Do that, Merlin. Sleep here because I'm a bloody paranoid lunatic – "

"That's enough."

" – and stay where I put you, and don't move, and don't breathe too loudly because I need my beauty sleep - "

"That was one time!"

" – and no you can't be left alone because I _worry_ so I'm going to turn your entire life upside down, and make sure you're suitably grateful for it no matter what you want, and I'll just mess with your head a little while I'm at it because I'm an entitled prat – "

" _Mer_ lin!"

" – and I am refusing you!"

Arthur blinked, struck dumb, and was at least gratified to find his shock at the outburst mirrored on Merlin's face. The quiet spanned the length of far too many galloping heartbeats, and then Merlin ticked, dropping his eyes. He took a step sideways, perhaps to evade a coming blow, or appear smaller from the side. Arthur regarded him warily, and then ventured, "Is this about last night? Or this morning?"

"No." The response seemed automatic, and Merlin immediately amended it to, "Yes. A little." Then he paused, and added, "I was kind of drunk," as if that explained his current behavior.

Arthur raised his brows. "Are you drunk now?"

"What? No! Just...just..." He flapped his hands around, which illuminated exactly nothing, and then just gusted out a huge breath and slumped against the wall. "It's too much. There's too much – " Merlin cupped his hands in the air around his head and shook them once, visibly frustrated and at a loss as to how to explain it before just blurting out, " – things!"

Arthur stepped forward and clutched Merlin around the head where his own hands had not touched. Amazingly, Merlin went pliant like that, wobbling between Arthur's hands, and just looked at Arthur for what felt like a long while.

"Better now?" Arthur asked.

Merlin tried a few times to reply before admitting, "I don't know what you want me to do anymore. I liked it better when I knew. When I was just a servant. _Your_ servant."

Arthur couldn't stop the wry chuckle from slipping out. "You've never acted like a servant."

"There was a line," Merlin pressed, "that I couldn't cross. I understood that. And being...being secret. I can do that. I know that. I don't know this." He took a huge breath and let it slough back out as if relinquishing a physical weight with that admission. The humid heat of anxious breath washed over Arthur's face. "I liked it better before," Merlin admitted. "No one looked at me, and you didn't know about...things."

Arthur bit the inside of his cheek to keep from frowning, or looking hurt, and tried to joke, "You don't like being honest with me? No more secrets, no more worry I might find out?"

Merlin shook his head, sandwiched as it was between Arthur's hands, and whispered, "I thought that it would be a relief. I thought that someday the time would be right, and I'd just know it was, I'd feel it. And it would finally be okay if I'm magic, and I'd stand at your side like the prophecies said. And we'd be equals, and it would be a golden age, and everything…it would all mean something. It would have been _for_ something. But it's not; it's all lies." Merlin met Arthur's eyes, and it was only when he did that it occurred to Arthur that Merlin had been evading his gaze for a most of that. His eyes were too bright, Arthur realized – on the verge of being wet. "It just feels like the ground is gone. And I'm still terrified you'll hate me for it, or for the things I did, and the lies, because there are still lies, and I don't know how to stop."

Arthur felt the way he had the morning before, realizing that Merlin had never been open with anyone, not completely, not ever. That he didn't know how. That he was afraid to be – afraid that the people he loved would run from him if they knew what he was, or what he could do. Or that they would send him away, as his mother had. It felt hollow and sad, and there was nothing Arthur could do about the past, to help that Merlin do something other than hide all of the time. He wasn't sure that would ever go away, the fear of being revealed – of being known just a little too well. Of slipping up. That kind of habit was insidious; it took hold at the roots and poisoned everything above.

Merlin breathed harsh through his nose, not spooked but definitely ready to bolt, whether he wanted to, or realized it himself, or not. It was like Balinor, Arthur thought. That woodsman living in a cave, with manners and reflexes and distrust like an animal – that was Arthur's warning not to fuck this up. That was the path Merlin had been treading all of his life, in his unknown father's footsteps, and he would stay on it if Arthur let him. If Arthur made him. And Arthur didn't want to reduce the man in front of him – however dangerous, however flawed – to a bitter, lonely shell of a man with no care left for the world, and no hope for it either.

"Merlin?"

Merlin hummed back at Arthur in question.

Arthur firmed up his hands, still framing Merlin's face with the tops of his ridiculous ears stuck up between Arthur's fingers. But then he didn't have anything to say. He didn't even have empty reassurances to give. At the last, all he could really offer was, "Shut up."

And then Arthur just...kissed him.

It was a stupid thing to do, out there in semi-public while Merlin floundered in his own skin. Possibly dishonorable, since Arthur had been explicitly refused. Merlin didn't resist though. He never really did, not about the things he should, and that was a problem. Arthur tasted sour tea and leftover morning breath, but Merlin's breath caught in a tiny hitch as his mouth opened to let Arthur inside, so it didn't matter. None of the perilousness of this act mattered so long as Arthur had him here, his body soft like surrender pressed between Arthur and the stone wall of the alcove.

Merlin came back to himself as Arthur pressed his knee between Merlin's thighs to brace against the wall there. He broke the kiss with a harsh breath and turned his face aside, into Arthur's palm, his ribcage moving fast beneath the other hand that Arthur moved to steady him. Arthur grasped harder at the ridges of bone midway between waist and shoulder, and stayed pressed there against him, aware of the swelling flesh against his leg and the way Merlin remained in place to let him feel it, rather than angling back in shame. Merlin's arms dangled at his sides, however, fingers loose and limp.

"Merlin."

It took a moment, as if Merlin had to wrench himself back from some other faraway place, before he looked back to Arthur, winded more severely than this situation could really account for. "This doesn't solve anything."

"It solves the problem of you being strung tighter than a crossbow." Arthur shifted against him and Merlin made a pained sound, then finally fumbled his hands up to reach for Arthur's belt. "No," Arthur admonished, intercepting both hands and shoving them out of the way again, out to Merlin's sides. "Not that again."

"What?" Merlin blinked some cognition back onto his face and protested, "But you need - "

" _Want_." Arthur watched Merlin's jaw work soundlessly as he tried and failed to make sense of that correction. "Not need," Arthur told him, gentle but insistent. "Want. Whatever I _want_."

Confused, as if he thought this were a trap, Merlin nodded and confirmed his own words from days before, hesitant and still breathing too fast. "Whatever you want."

Arthur nodded. "Right now, I want this."

"But you have to - "

"I'm the king," Arthur reminded him. "I don't _have to_ anything." He regrouped though and took some of his weight back. "If you truly want me to stop, I will."

Merlin started shaking his head, but his words came out a frantic opposite. "You're not supposed to do that. To me. I'm a servant, I have to – "

Arthur nodded along in agreement, but muffled the frankly ridiculous class protest with his lips. Merlin grunted into his mouth as Arthur leaned his weight forward again and made certain to keep all of Merlin's involuntary noises smothered so no one could hear. There were carts rolling past the guard alcove right behind them, and people walking, boots clacking on cobblestone and conversation twittering around _right there_. It was such a stupid place for this. Arthur knew better. He just really didn't care right now, with Merlin's hands creeping up to bunch at the back of Arthur's mail shirt and twist the metal links low where Arthur's kidneys sat.

When Arthur shifted his leg to force Merlin's stance wider, he had to swallow a grunt from Merlin's lips that sounded like being punched. Their teeth scraped briefly. Arthur reached down between them and tugged Merlin's tunic up out of his knotted belt, shoving it out of the way and elbowing the surcoat aside. Merlin reacted to the hand worming into his braes by seizing Arthur's wrist in fingers clenched tight enough to hurt, respirations juddering like he might be shivering with fever. He stopped kissing back, and Arthur just kept his lips there as a warning, or a precaution toward silence. The nails of Merlin's other hand curled in too sharp against the back of Arthur's neck where the mail didn't cover his skin. Merlin let out a strangled groan and curled his body, pelvis toward Arthur's hand, head back and neck arched to show off tendons and adam's apple.

Arthur slowed down and twisted his own hip to pin Merlin's back when he started trying to control the speed of Arthur's strokes, or break free from them entirely. It made Merlin's knees buckle and Arthur moved his lips aside so that he could push Merlin's head down and muffle him in Arthur's shoulder. He could feel Merlin's fingernails catching in his chainmail, scraping against metal. Arthur resumed stroking with most of Merlin's weight propped up and from the sharp, gasping breaths, guessed that this wouldn't take long. When Merlin's frame tightened up, Arthur grappled him around to half face the wall, and Merlin curled his head into the crook of his own elbow to keep quiet. He sagged back against Arthur's chest and Arthur twisted into the corner of the alcove to help support both their weight.

It was over quickly after that. Merlin's free arm shot out to brace himself against the wall, and Arthur watched his mouth open soundlessly as he inhaled a few times, rapid staccato breaths that didn't seem to come back out right away. Then he tensed up, rigid for just a moment too long, too like the fits he'd had in Arthur's arms, and there it was, and the rictus broke. Arthur felt him spasm several times, full body things that seemed to run in a line down his abdomen, held steady in Arthur's now immobile hands. The jagged way he breathed through it, mouth hanging open like a fish, sounded like a flurry of hiccoughs, or the shocked sound a man makes when he's shot by a crossbow bolt – throat constricted, more surprise than pain. Arthur waited for the sag of limbs and the long, heaving breaths that signaled the aftermath, and then staggered as Merlin's knees tried to give out. He was clutching Arthur by the forearms now, where Arthur had crossed them both over Merlin's chest, and his exhales came tinged with tiny, short, barely audible vowel sounds until he gathered the presence of mind to close his mouth.

Arthur spared a thought for the foot traffic nearly within arm's reach of the alcove opening, just around a miniscule corner. People continued moving along just as they always did, as if Arthur weren't supporting a good portion of his new Court Physician's weight while said man tried to find his wits again. The evidence of what they'd just done dripped in little globules down the wall, largely indistinguishable from the dirt and discoloration already present. Merlin's breathing calmed quickly, and he seemed to come back to the present with a jolt as the departure bell rang out across the citadel above them.

Merlin struggled to get his feet under him and Arthur let him have the dignity of putting himself back to rights, buttons and ties and belt set in order with shaking hands, as various guards began calling out for the king, and then asking people if they had seen him leave the courtyard. Merlin sorted himself out with alacrity for a man on the far side of an unexpected orgasm. Then he just stood there, one hand braced on the wall, his head bowed low. Arthur could see how his ribcage continued to expand and contract beneath his clothes, but at least now, it was a slower, deeper rhythm. A sheen of sweat glistened at the nape of his long neck.

"Come on." Arthur stepped forward and coaxed him out of the corner. "They'll send out a search party if we don't turn up soon."

Merlin gave him a glassy look, and then noticed the commotion outside of their shelter as if waking from a deep sleep. This sort of release in the middle of the day could be disorienting, Arthur knew. He wasn't all that certain that _Merlin_ knew that feeling, though. Odd as it seemed, he wasn't an innocent in these pleasures – Arthur couldn't imagine that, at Merlin's age – but there was also something inexperienced about the way he approached it all. Or maybe just one-sided. Maybe Merlin was used to giving that kind of pleasure without necessarily receiving it back. Or maybe it made him uncomfortable, and Arthur shouldn't have done it.

Arthur frowned at that thought, then steadied Merlin as they emerged from the alcove. Without being obvious, they slipped around an increasingly concerned eddy of guards and knights to find their horses arranged in line with the others, waiting for them. Merlin wobbled a bit as he tried to untwist a stirrup, and Arthur took the opportunity to say, "Is it quieter, at least?"

Merlin gazed at him with a blank expression.

"In your head." Arthur made an understated mockery of Merlin's hand-flapping from earlier. "Fewer _things_ going in circles?"

"Yeah." Merlin's voice came out as a hoarse croak, and he cleared his throat sharply. "Yes, I'm..." But he never finished that, forehead furrowing up he turned instead to scramble up into the saddle with even less grace than usual.

Arthur's faint concern grew, because he didn't want things ruined between them. And hadn't they been heading in this direction? Wasn't this what they'd both been dancing around for days now? Arthur quickly looked away but hearkening back to their aborted conversation that morning, he abruptly insisted, "I _do_ feel. You can ignore it and pretend it's just another service to your king, but I can't, and I don't want to, and you've no say in that." Without giving him a chance to respond, Arthur started walking away and ordered, "Come up to the front of the line, where you usually are."

After an obvious delay, he could hear Merlin's horse clop-clopping after him as he made his way to the head of the hunting train. Hengroen tossed his head as Arthur swung up into the saddle, perhaps unsettled by the odd smell that lingered on Arthur's hands. He sidled a bit before submitting to Arthur's control, shoving Merlin and his mount to one side as well. Their gazes met for a moment, Merlin's unreadable, and Arthur looked away before he could give into the urge to try and fathom it.

It was a very awkward, subdued hunting party that rode out of the citadel not long after that.

~TBC~


	10. Chapter 10

_**The Sword in the Stone**_

 _Morgana sat draped over the throne, unflinching and so cold as Arthur and his most loyal subjects crashed through the doors that they all careened to a stop in order to stare better._

 _"Welcome, dear brother. It's been far too long."_

 _Arthur let his sword sink to his side and straightened up to face her as equals. She did deserve that much, didn't she? After everything?_

 _Morgana flowed up onto her feet, but the cant of her body was all wrong. It was a slithering thing, all bent like a snake, crooked and sick. "I apologize if you had a difficult reception." She paced toward him, her limbs loose and careless like a mathematical equation given form. It was measured. It had purpose. "It's hard to know who to trust these days."_

 _Arthur moved forward to meet her, his sword dangling from his open hand in a show of peace._

 _For a moment, Morgana kept her chin tilted up, throat vulnerable to the blade in his hand. Something on her face changed as she lowered her head and leveled her gaze at him, the demented tilt of her body pulling up straight before him. Her eyes held an odd uncertainty, and for a moment, she was just Morgana again._

 _Watching the wariness in Morgana's eyes, and holding it with his own stare, Arthur sheathed his sword. She let him approach to within a foot or so, the proximity reserved at court for one's family. "What happened to you, Morgana?"_

 _The hardness crumbled, and she was there again for a moment – his childhood playmate, the girl in the emerald dress, scared and lonely, and desperate for affection from a father who denied her compassion – from a king who demanded that his children mold themselves in his own image._

 _"I thought we were friends."_

 _Morgana swallowed, and the sorrow on her face must have been genuine, to be so naked there. "As did I." Then her voice hardened, and the fanatic leaked back in through the cracks in her composure. "But alas, we were both wrong."_

 _Arthur blinked to contain an unwanted emotion, so similar to the one that had just made Morgana's familiar green eyes shine. He thought for a moment that his throat wouldn't let him say anything more, but it passed. His words were soft when they came, because he did understand, at least a little bit, that she only harbored so much hate as a shield to cover the fear. "You can't blame me for my father's sins."_

 _Morgana's head weaved, and he could see that soft, true bit of her receding again behind the cold, reptilian madness. "It's a little late for that." The hurt broke through again, though, perhaps in spite of her desire to appear strong. "You've made it perfectly clear how you feel about me and my kind."_

 _Arthur kept his lips pressed together because he was afraid of what he might say if he tried to refute that. If he tried to refute that. He thought of Merlin, though – the sorcerer at his back. The liar he could trust, as long as he never confronted the truth of him, the way Morgana had forced him to confront the truth of her. Would they be here now, like this, if she had kept her secret buried? Would that have saved her from succumbing to this bitter madness?_

 _Would it have saved_ him _from wondering deep down, despite all evidence to the contrary, if it weren't just Morgana? If it weren't just her magic that brought madness? If maybe, one day, he would look at Merlin the same way he now looked at her?_

 _"You're not as different from Uther as you'd like to think."_

 _No. No, he really wasn't. But then again, "Nor are you."_

Arthur grinned and leaned over in his saddle to thump Sir Caradoc on the back in congratulations. "How many pheasants is that?"

"Four for me, sire." Caradoc tied the latest pheasant to his saddle and then hoisted himself back onto his horse. "And two hares. We seem to have fortune on our side; we haven't even made camp yet."

"Indeed. Maybe we'll have the same luck with deer in the morning." Arthur steered his mount forward and around Caradoc, who was busy situating himself and his armor not to dig in anywhere unpleasant. Merlin waited a short distance away, his expression obscure. He'd been that way all afternoon – not his usual chatty, complaining self at all. It was starting to wear on Arthur's nerves something fierce. This was supposed to be a holiday; they were all supposed to enjoy themselves, unwind, and remember that they were just a bunch of normal men who liked to have a bit of fun.

Unnecessarily, Merlin pointed out, "Days are getting shorter. It'll be dark soon."

Arthur nodded because that seemed the easiest way to stop Merlin from going on about it. "We'll cut through the vale up ahead, be at the cold spring to make camp by sundown." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder as they prodded their horses forward. "George looks rather pained."

Merlin smirked, which really just went to show that he was far more like Arthur than he would maybe ever admit. "Never ridden a horse before."

"It shows." Arthur snuffed to hold in his laugh and stole a glance back at the way poor George was trying to stand in the stirrups to save his tender buttocks. "I hope you brought something for bruises."

"Oh, of course. I know how you lot are. All your friendly punching and shoving each other into trees. I'd be an idiot not to bring a gallon of bruise paste."

"You _are_ an idiot. I don't expect you to understand the camaraderie of knights."

"Yeah, I've seen your camaraderie," Merlin grumbled. "I can do without it, thank you."

Arthur grinned out one side of his mouth, and thankfully, Merlin finally offered him a small smile back, secret and close. When Arthur faced forward again, though, his own grin faltered. "Nemeton isn't far from here, you know. Wouldn't even add a full hour to our journey."

Merlin's head whipped around and he forcibly inserted his horse in front of Arthur's to stop him for a moment. "You can't be serious."

"Not for that," Arthur soothed. "I just fancy some privacy so we can talk."

Reluctantly, Merlin guided his horse out of Arthur's way and reclaimed his regular place near Arthur's flank – not quite behind him, but close enough. "Talk?"

"You know we need to. Come on; there's a trail off here. We can take the long way round and meet everyone back at the camp site by suppertime."

"Or we could just talk around a cookfire like normal people. _After_ we make camp."

"I think we'd both rather not risk being overheard by gossiping knights. They're worse than a gaggle of maiden aunts. Come on; trail's this way."

Merlin leaned around in his saddle like an idiot trying for a better vantage point. "Where?"

"There." Arthur pointed down into the vale and off to the right. "See? It's kind of covered in leaves or something."

Merlin sat back up straight in his saddle and made a face at Arthur, mouth screwed up on one side as if he were cataloging all of the ways in which Arthur was addled. "That's a gully. Trails are more, you know, traily."

Arthur curled his lip up. "What's your problem? It goes the right direction, it's dry, and the horses won't have a problem with it."

"Are you daft? Weren't you just warning everyone about watching for bandits and leftover Saxons? The scouts haven't cleared that route."

"Stop being such a girl; it's the king's forest. Come on." Arthur reigned his horse to the right, forcing Merlin to also veer off track to avoid getting run into. "Besides, we did have Saxons here last year; there's every chance that some of them are still living in the deep woods. We should make sure."

The sound of Merlin's horse followed Arthur down, along with a lot of squawking. "What?! And what are we supposed to do if they _are_ still there? Wave at them? Offer them dinner?"

"It's hardly going to be a whole hoard of them. There were a few scattered homesteads, that's all. Caradoc! Percival!" Arthur craned his neck around, pleased to see said knights immediately peel off from the baggage train. "Come on! We're scouting for deer track."

"Two knights?" Merlin huffed an explosive and mirthless chuckle. "Against a hoard of Saxons."

"Three knights, Merlin. I am actually a knight too, remember?"

Merlin scoffed and muttered, "Three knights. Oh, that's better."

"And it's not a hoard! It probably isn't anything at all. They know they aren't welcome in Camelot."

"Right. Silly me, worrying for nothing." Louder now, so that he could be sure of Arthur hearing him, Merlin griped, "And you're not scouting for deer; you're lying and being an arse."

"Not being an arse," Arthur told him cheerfully. "I brought my secret sorcerer with me, didn't I? I'm sure you could handle a few bandits."

Merlin hissed and hunched into his shoulders as if to shield himself from revelations and eavesdroppers. "Tell everybody, why don't you. You realize you can't stop them executing me, right?"

Arthur sobered, and ignored the urge to feel even slightly ashamed of himself for treating that very real danger as a joke to tease with. "Yes, I know. They'd think they were saving me from your enchantments. I apologize for making light of it."

"You apologize," Merlin mocked, aggrieved. He kept grumbling under his breath.

Arthur ignored him and guided his horse down the gully track without further obstacle. "You know, anyone else would be humbled to receive his king's apology."

"Maybe if you weren't being such a dollop head, I would be."

Arthur laughed under his breath; he missed this. The gentle pestering, poking at Merlin's soft underbelly and riling him up until he seemingly forgot that Arthur was, indeed, the king. He sobered after a minute, though, because the whole point of breaking off from the others was to gain privacy for a serious conversation that they needed to have sooner rather than later. Behind them, Caradoc and Percival maneuvered down the gully, the former gabbing as if Perceival weren't terminally quiet most of the time. Arthur made a gesture for them to maintain a discrete distance. Percival nodded, and Caradoc waved as they fell back.

Merlin hadn't yet stopped mumbling under his breath. Arthur caught _bumble-headed prat_ from amongst the chatter, and decided that enough was probably enough. If Arthur just let him prattle on until he ran out of steam on his own, they'd reach the camp, eat supper, and bed down before he wound down enough for productive discourse. "Merlin."

"This is a bad idea. A really, very bad idea. Why don't you ever listen to me? Every time you tell me to quit worrying, we get ambushed by bandits. Do you realize that?"

Arthur frowned back at him and weakly countered, "Not _every_ time, surely."

"Every. Time," Merlin bounced back. "And I should know, because I've been keeping track."

"Okay." Arthur held up a hand in the hopes of placating him, and firmly reminded himself that it had nothing to do with the fact that he couldn't think of anything to immediately prove Merlin wrong. But that didn't mean anything; it just meant that Arthur didn't catalogue Merlin's unwarranted worry moments the way that Merlin himself apparently did. "Okay, fine, maybe I get impulsive. That's actually what I want to talk to you about."

Merlin snapped his mouth shut and treated Arthur to a suspicious look. Despite Merlin being behind him, Arthur knew it was happening because he knew Merlin, and could easily picture his squinty face. "You wanted to talk about bandits?"

"What? No, Merlin! Impulsivity. I do things without thinking them through sometimes; you know this about me. And I want to – For god's sake, I'm trying to figure out if I need to apologize for this afternoon in the courtyard. You know, the..." Arthur cursed the fact that he could feel his face turning red, and rather than finish that sentence, he made a lewd and demonstrative gesture to refer to what happened in the alcove.

There was no response for a moment, and Arthur twisted to look over his shoulder. He found Merlin's face shuttered, though something odd lingered about his eyes. "It's fine. It helped, right? No worries."

Arthur frowned as his horse jostled him where he sat canted at an awkward angle to maintain eye contact. "You refused me."

"I could have stopped you."

To Arthur's ears, that sounded like more of a threat than it might have been. "Yes," he agreed, dubious. "Why didn't you?"

Merlin's face finally thawed, and he looked away with a shrug before deciding to straighten out the hopeless tangle he'd made of his horse's reigns. "Wasn't exactly terrible. Sort of a shock, but better than getting boots thrown at my head." Then he paused to consider the whole thing, and asked, "Should I apologize too?"

Arthur scoffed. "For what?"

"I have no idea. I've never done that before, but you're the king, and there's court protocol for bloody everything in Camelot."

Arthur twisted again to look back, and frowned. "Court protocol? You think there's court protocol for the king tossing you off in an alcove?"

Merlin made a comical wide-eyed face at him, as if to convey how utterly moronic _Arthur_ was for asking that. "I told you, I don't know! I don't do those things."

With a sharp jerk on the reigns, Arthur halted his horse and swung it around so that he could face Merlin. "That. I need you to explain what you mean when you keep saying that – that you don't do those things, but that you know how."

Merlin's horse stopped to snuffle her fellow, and then tossed her head; Merlin merely sat there and treated Arthur to a bewildered look, only this time, it seemed genuine rather than his usual flavor of mocking. At Arthur's insistent staring, he hesitantly offered, "I don't…you know. Do that. With people."

"With people," Arthur echoed, briefly perturbed by that specific wording. "You do it with other things?"

Merlin blinked, and then gave him a ferocious scowl. "No! Is this because of the magic? You think I'm running around fucking sprites or trees or goats or something?"

In a valiant effort not to sound defensive, Arthur gave a nervous laugh and snorted, "No, of course not."

"Liar. You're making your lying face."

"I am not!" He totally was, and he knew it. "Shut up. I don't know how you people work."

Merlin's face abruptly wiped itself smooth. "We people aren't any different from you."

Arthur took a deep breath and released it at the heavens with a soft growl of frustration. "I know that. You just said it oddly; it implied things."

Merlin shook his head. "You know, sometimes, there's no talking to you." He backed his horse up and then spurred her to go around Arthur.

"Don't be like that," Arthur called. He pressed his horse to follow and trotted up beside him again. "Come on; you know you're a little strange."

Thankfully, Merlin slowed his horse to amble more comfortably beside Arthur again. It took a long silence, through which Arthur fidgeted impatiently, but Merlin did eventually explain, "I've never had a woman. I thought…there was one, once. I thought I might have done, with her, but looking back, all the feelings were wrong."

"Loved her like a sister?" Arthur suggested. "Not a wife?"

Merlin shook his head. "Not even that, really. I felt pity for her, and responsible for saving her. Failed that. She died." He took a cleansing breath and then let it out slowly, head raised to gaze unseeing at the trees. "It's funny. We were about the same age, but I remember thinking how she was just a child, and I had to protect her."

Arthur furrowed his brow, wondering who this woman was, and when Merlin had known her. He wasn't sure, though, that he had any right to ask. "You felt paternal toward her?"

"Not exactly. It's complicated. I kissed her; that definitely wasn't paternal. I dunno."

Arthur nodded, though he wasn't certain that he understood. "And that was it? You never tried it with anyone else?"

Merlin shrugged. "Some of the court folk can get handsy, especially when they're drunk. I can usually just deliver them back to their own servants, though."

A prickle took root at the base of Arthur's spine. "Usually?"

"Yeah." Merlin looked down at his hands and picked a bit at the lint stuck to his cuffs. "Sometimes, their proclivities aren't for their wives or husbands."

Arthur glanced briefly at the man beside him, then away. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Merlin raised his head and fixed his gaze at the side of Arthur's head. "I'm saying that I may have used magic on some of them to put them to sleep so it wouldn't go anywhere."

A gust of air left Arthur's lungs in a rush. "Ha! Right. Of course." He paused. "Only some of them?"

"Mm." Merlin looked away again. "I let it happen a few times, in the beginning. I was…I guess, lonely. A bit. Thought it might be nice, but I'm a servant. So it was always, you know. One-sided."

Arthur swallowed and bit the inside of his cheek. He didn't bother to voice that Merlin had plainly stated he'd never had a woman, meaning that the times he let it happen were all with men. "Hence, you don't do those things, but you know how."

"Yup." Merlin offered him a spastic grin. "See? Protocol."

"That's not the protocol at court. They aren't actually supposed to do that to servants."

"I'm not some blushing innocent you need to defend." Merlin smiled in a more genuine fashion that time. "Boys get curious, don't they? I knew what I was doing."

Arthur stole a glance to make sure that Merlin wasn't just brushing the whole thing off to save face, but he did seem to be telling the truth. There wasn't any fear or discomfort in the way he returned Arthur's gaze. Finally, Arthur nodded. "Alright. But just for the sake of argument, you know that you don't have to accept those kinds of advances, right? Even from me?"

Merlin started to spout off something flippant, to judge by his face, but he seemed to rethink that in light of Arthur's attempts to be serious about that. Finally, he just settled with, "It's complicated," again.

Arthur sighed and faced forward, soothing his horse as he resettled in the saddle. Of course it was complicated; that was the whole reason they needed to talk it out. He could have let the matter drop; they didn't need to discuss it, at least not right now. Knights fumbled around on campaigns all of the time, and it didn't mean anything. Men had needs, or just couldn't bleed off the tension any other way. What happened between them in the alcove that afternoon could just be that. But it would be the coward's way out, because Arthur knew better. He knew what sat mouldering between them, danced around and skirted but still only partially unsaid. And god help him, Arthur wanted something more than just friendly fumbles – bloody _court protocol_ – and awkward silences after.

He drew breath a few times, ready to just baldly say what he meant – put the notion out there, drag it out of the dark and hold it up for scrutiny. That he didn't actually want to apologize for putting his hands on Merlin – that he wanted things like hiding in alcoves, and touching, and knowing the way that Merlin gasped and trembled afterwards, and the glassy expression on his face when his mind went quiet. Sleeping curled together, innocent. The smell when he put his nose in Merlin's hair. The freedom to put his hand on Merlin's cheek, to touch the dark and wiry beard he was allowing to grow on his face. To press their foreheads together. To be able to say what he wanted to say without Merlin stopping him and hiding his feelings behind Arthur's own crown.

Behind him again, Merlin hummed at his horse and received a whicker in response. Arthur scanned the path ahead of them, trees thinning marginally as they approached the plain. He sucked in air again, steeling himself this time to just say the words trapped under his tongue. They wouldn't come. Some little voice buried deep in the unkind part of his heart hissed that maybe he really was only trying to replace Guinevere, and that it wasn't Merlin he wanted at all. That he was fooling himself, and Merlin probably knew it.

In the distance, the setting sunlight glowed orange from beyond the tree line where the plains of Nemeton lay. The ground sloped gently upward and Arthur guided his horse out of the now shallow gully. Pine needles littered the forest floor in a pungent carpet that softened the footfalls of the horses. Farther behind, Caradoc let out a belly laugh, perhaps at something Percival said, and the echo faded back into silence a moment later. The air smelt of dying leaves and rich earth, a faint chill, and the coming sleep of winter. A hint of smoke wafted along irregular air currents, perhaps from a cottage hidden deep in these woods.

Arthur thought of his father, and the beatific smile that crossed his face when he looked up and saw Arthur, in that split second before he gasped and died – of that helpless joy that overcame him at the sight of his son. Of the way that going to Nemeton had fouled that memory – overlaid it with a patina of criticism and fervent madness that would forever color Arthur's fondest recollections of his father. He thought of the upcoming feast of Samhain, and of sundered veils releasing the rage of the wrongful dead. And he pictured a young girl gasping breath back into her lungs while Merlin cried joyfully on the floor – a young girl who lived where Arthur's father had not.

Merlin was cooing at his horse now, a soft and familiar sound that Arthur realized he hadn't heard in over a year, since the last time they rode out together. "What went wrong?" Arthur asked, idle enough to be ignored but loud enough to carry if Merlin chose to acknowledge the question. "When you tried to heal my father. What went wrong?" He remembered Uther gasping on the ground. It's my time. Warm blood seeping between Arthur's fingers, feeling more drunk than he should have for the amount of wine he had. It was the last time he celebrated his birthday. The last time he allowed anyone to acknowledge how his father's final gift to him had been to take the blade meant for Arthur unto himself. Not for the first time, Arthur wondered if by looking to magic in hope of healing him, he had betrayed that final gift. Would it still have been a betrayal if it had worked? "Was it not enough? Was he too far gone for the spell?"

It was only after several moments of Arthur's heartbeat rushing through the blood in his own ears that he realized it was too silent. Arthur reigned in his horse and rounded back to find Merlin sitting still atop his unmoving horse several yards back, both of them tense and watching him. They blinked at each other briefly, and then Merlin shook his head, face drawing closed in wary confusion at the sudden subject change. "Gaius didn't tell you?"

Arthur tipped his head to one side, then shook it. "Tell me what?"

Merlin shifted and his horse side-stepped in annoyance at the fidgeting. "About the necklace. The charm?"

A memory prickled in Arthur's memory. "My father had an odd necklace on when he died. I didn't recognize it. I don't know what happened to it, though. I assume it was removed when they prepared his body to lay in state."

"Gaius took it." Merlin started to shake his head, then appeared to try to stop the impulse. The curt motion softened into a bewildered wobble instead. "You're sure he didn't mention it to you?"

"Yes," Arthur replied. He fought to keep his tone open when all he wanted to do was bear down and growl for an immediate explanation. "What does it have to do with my father's death?"

Merlin blinked at him like an oddly proportioned bird. "It was cursed. It took my healing magic and reversed it. When I cast the spell to heal your father, it only made the wound worse."

Arthur pressed his tongue into his cheek and leaned his head back to look at the sky. The calm above seemed deceptive. Somewhere close behind them, Caradoc's voice carried indistinct but jovial through the thickets and rising cricket calls. "Where did it come from? The necklace?"

In his periphery, Merlin shifted to steady himself in the saddle as his horse scuffed a hoof at something in the dirt. "Morgana, most likely. Gaius thinks it was Agravaine who put it on him, though." Then he cleared his through, and corrected, voice tight, "Thought."

Arthur nodded, pensive, and looked down at his hands so that he wouldn't have to see the way Merlin's face crumpled just a little bit at the edges. He was a fool. He'd told Agravaine that he wanted to use magic to heal his father. Even not knowing of his subterfuge yet, of his alliance with Morgana, Arthur never should have told him, or anyone, that he planned to use magic. Except for Merlin, of course. Because Merlin would die, kill, and worse to remain true to Arthur. And it's not as if Arthur could have found a healer himself; no one would have trusted him, or cared to help the king who persecuted them. No, only Merlin, the bumbling would-be manservant, would ever consider giving his magic to a Pendragon.

Eventually, all Arthur replied with was, "That makes sense." He tipped his head back down to the trees and glanced back.

Merlin wavered in his saddle as he fiddled discontentedly with the seams of his new clothing. "I don't understand why he wouldn't tell you." His face reminded Arthur of the night they camped in front of the cave of the Disir, when Arthur tried to coax the truth from him, and Merlin merely denied magic altogether, looking sick about it.

Why, indeed. Arthur sighed and pulled at his gloves to straighten the leather back over his fingers. Then he shook his head, brow pinched between his eyes. "Why didn't _you_ tell me? All this time, Merlin. I thought you'd just messed it up – clumsy like you are with laundry, or forgetting half of my breakfast. For god's sake – I was furious with you for being as incompetent at magic as you are at everything else."

It was only when Merlin made a hurt sound that Arthur thought his words too harsh. Uncharitable. Merlin wasn't useless. He was just…well. Not reliable in some things?

Arthur spurred his horse in a skip step back to Merlin and pulled up beside the other horse so that they could face each other, their mounts poised nose-to-tail in twinned arcs. When he couldn't silently gain Merlin's gaze, Arthur gentled his posture and asked again, "Why didn't you tell me yourself?"

Merlin shook his head, chin tucked down and eyes hidden beneath a fall of messy hair that needed cutting. "Gaius said he handled everything." Then he raised his head, avoiding Arthur's gaze again in favor of staring hard at the middle distance. "He wanted me to stay out of it."

"Stay out of it?" Arthur balked. "You're my manservant; how can you stay out of anything to do with me?"

"I…" Merlin trailed off, blinking at various points around Arthur's perimeter. "He didn't want me to do it at all. Heal your father. He tried to talk me out of it. When it went wrong, he told me to let him handle it. You."

"Gaius knew that you're Dragoon." At Merlin's faint nod, Arthur asked, "Then why would he let me keep believing that you double crossed me and murdered my father? If I hadn't recognized your stupid boots, can you imagine what my stance toward magic would be now? After believing that a sorcerer used me to gain access to my father and kill him?" Arthur blew his frustration out with his next exhalation. "You should have told me, Merlin."

Merlin's voice came back semi-vacant. "I assumed you knew."

Incredulous, Arthur demanded, "After what I said to you before the vigil, why would you assume that?"

With a helpless shrug, Merlin admitted, "I thought you just didn't care."

Arthur drew a pained breath, but he knew what he was like – the things he had made himself believe first as a prince, and then still for a good while after. It was a valid thought to have, that Arthur didn't care about the difference between the sorcerer who cursed, and the one who fell prey and did the killing. "Merlin…"

Merlin's face had gone blank by the time Arthur could look at him again, his eyes unfocused and distant. "I don't understand why he wouldn't tell you."

Arthur prodded his horse sideways until his knee brushed against Merlin's thigh. "Is this why you keep saying you're responsible for my father's death? Because you thought I blamed you?"

Merlin blinked at the darkening woods, and then his eyes wandered a meandering trail down to where their legs touched. "I don't know." His head shook back and forth as if he weren't making a conscious effort at denial – as if his body were doing it for him, independent of his mind. "I don't know, Arthur. I don't – "

"Stop, it's alright." Arthur covered Merlin's hands where they clenched together in white-knuckled fists, tangled up with the reigns wrapped around the front of the saddle. He could feel Merlin shiver against his leg from something other than the rising chill. "It's alright if you don't know." He should have said that he _didn't_ blame Merlin. He wasn't certain, though, that it would not be a lie if he did.

Merlin's voice trembled in spite of the visible effort that he made to keep it steady, his tone edging closer to anger now than whatever he had shaken from a moment before. "I didn't want him to die, Arthur. You have to believe me. I hate him. I do, I hate him for what he did to people with magic, and the dragons, and Morgana, and you – what he tried to make you into. I hate him, but I didn't want him to die – I didn't want to hurt you."

"I know." The worst part of it was that Arthur did know. He couldn't exactly echo all of it – he still had doubts about his father, and of course, other than Merlin's, he didn't trust magic. It had caused him and his kingdom too much harm for him to simply discard a lifetime of bad experience. But however easier Merlin's life may have been without the threat of Uther breathing down his neck every day, Arthur couldn't imagine Merlin wishing him dead. After all, he had confronted that possibility already and discarded it; Merlin hadn't yet learned true guile when Uther died. And Merlin probably would have saved the life of a tyrant a dozen times over if it would have spared Arthur pain, no matter the collateral cost. Merlin's loyalty was distressing like that.

"He was under guard. Almost no one could get in, but I should have felt something was wrong – I could feel it later, when Gaius showed it to me." It came out sharp and angry, but also something else, something that spoke of his conviction that eventually, Arthur would indeed hate him for his magic.

Hoping to defray the self-castigation in Merlin's voice, Arthur said, "I understand."

"Well, I don't!" Merlin trembled for a moment, his fists going tight beneath Arthur's hand. "What I did, it made you hate magic even more. It ruined everything! You were going to change things – you promised."

"That's not what you did." Arthur dug his fingernails into the cracks between Merlin's fingers to loosen the vice grip he had on the edge of the saddle. Idly, he wondered if his father's death had also spelled Merlin's loss of hope for a life lived freely, or if that had come later, through no one's fault but Arthur's himself. "Maybe Gaius was trying to protect you."

Merlin's eyes finally whipped around to fix on Arthur, incredulous. "Protect me? From what?"

"From me." Arthur dragged one of Merlin's hands away and began unwinding the reigns from Merlin's abused fingers.

"You already knew about me," Merlin countered. "What did it matter?"

"Neither of you knew that," Arthur tried to reason. "And what if I hadn't figured it out on my own? What if knowing about that charm led me to you, and I found out like that instead?"

A mean snort tore its way from Merlin's mouth and he wrenched his hand out of Arthur's grasp. "Gaius supported the purge, remember. He helped try to eradicate magic."

Arthur looked up at the side of his face where Merlin's jaw twitched at the force with which he clenched it. "You're not seriously suggesting that he kept silent to prevent me from reconsidering my stance on magic."

"What do I know," Merlin snapped. He dropped wet eyes to his hands and ran the pads of his fingers over the indentations that the reigns left crisscrossing over the back of his hand. "Kilgharrah never stopped calling him a traitor. And he lied to me, apparently a lot."

That was true. Gaius did lie, and he did seem to have some kind of agenda on the side, some goal or belief that still wasn't clear. And his loyalty to Uther seemed an odd but strong thing threaded throughout everything he did. However, he had also obviously loved Merlin like a son – had protected him and kept his secrets for a decade. Eventually, Arthur settled on, "Gaius was a complicated man." But by not telling Arthur what really happened, he nearly ensured that Arthur would start his reign just as opposed to magic as his father. If Arthur hadn't recognized Merlin's boots kicking him like a plough horse… If he had gone on believing that Dragoon was just a crazed, duplicitous old sorcerer and not, just maybe, a friend trying desperately to open the eyes of a prince… What may have come of his kingship to date? What might Arthur have done in vengeance for his father's death? "All fathers are flawed men, Merlin. We can't ever really know everything that drives them, or why they would do things that hurt us. All we can be sure of is that they loved us, and at their best, they never intended us harm."

His voice miserable and small, Merlin replied, "I know Gaius loved me." He said it as if that only made him feel worse, and it probably did. Tellingly, he did not add that he believed Gaius meant him no harm.

Arthur had years under his belt by now, dealing with the irreconcilable dichotomy of loving the image of a father in spite of the reality of the man. Merlin had only just started down that path to disillusionment. It wasn't fair to either of them, and perhaps unduly harsh on their respective father figures. A man could only be the product of the times he lived in, after all. No one could really choose what life gave them. And it wasn't like Arthur or Merlin were any better. They were flawed too. Imperfect, just like the men who molded them.

Arthur pursed his lips to hold in a sigh. "When Gaius realized that I knew about your magic, he nearly passed out from fright and begged me not to execute you. Just…please remember that. Alright? His heart was in the right place when it came to you."

"Like your father's was for you?"

Arthur winced. "That's unfair."

"Is it? Gaius and your father…" Merlin laughed, and though his face did all of the right things, nothing about that sound matched. "Two peas in a pod, yeah? Uther couldn't have managed the purge without Gaius. We both know it."

"Perhaps." Arthur knew from experience that there wasn't anything he could say to take away those feelings of betrayal – the knowledge that the man he looked to as a father was not the man he thought he was. Instead of pressing the matter, Arthur softened his tone and said, "Thank you for telling me what really happened."

Merlin nodded, shook his head, and then swiped hard enough at his damp face that it must have hurt. "I'm sorry. I was so busy trying to convince you that magic is good, I didn't even think to look for something else."

"It can be good." Arthur sighed at the confusion and sad anger on Merlin's face, but let it be. Merlin needed his grief right now, and even his anger and confusion; Arthur wasn't quite so oblivious that he didn't know that. "You're the one who has tried to show me that."

"How?" Merlin huffed a harsh laugh, then looked surprised at the sound that came from his own mouth. "How have I shown you anything like that?"

Arthur could have started a list to answer that, but he had the feeling that Merlin already had rebuttals at the ready to refute the actual goodness of any specific act that Arthur might name. Instead, Arthur merely replied, "It's the only thing you have ever shown me about magic." Which was true – Merlin made mistakes, a lot of them, but Arthur still had no reason to believe that he worked for anything but the right cause, however flawed or ineffective his approach may sometimes be. "What do you call healing magic, if not good?"

"I saved one girl by ruining her chances for motherhood and a good life."

Arthur pursed his lips. "I'm sure her mother would disagree, when the other option was no life at all. What are you trying to do, Merlin? Convince me that you're evil and that I should do something to stop you?"

Finally, Merlin relented and croaked, "No." But then he followed up with, "Maybe. Gaius always said I needed to be more careful. Think more. Take magic seriously. But I never did. I was reckless with it, and…drunk. On the power. Everyone kept telling me I'm the greatest sorcerer that ever lived – that I'm fated, and I can't fail. All of these sects, magic users, Druids, the Catha, even Sidhe and the Cailleach, and woods spirits, they just came out of nowhere – I'd never seen anything like them before I came to Camelot – before I met you – and they said these amazing things. Like, we could be free, and we could have peace, and I wouldn't have to hide anymore. Some of them even swore fealty. To me. Said I'd save them, and I believed them. I believed nothing could stop me. I thought I was invincible, but I'm not. And people died. A lot of people. Most of them didn't deserve it."

Arthur took a deep breath and squeezed gently at the muscles of Merlin's forearm corded tight beneath his hand. What Merlin described was literally Uther's worst nightmare, magic folk rising up in force to reclaim their place with an unstoppable sorcerer at their head. Once, it had been Arthur's worst nightmare too. And it had been Morgana's unhinged aspiration, to be what Merlin might have been for magic folk – the warlord and the savior. She wasn't it; that power didn't belong to her. It likely did belong to Merlin, though. And he'd refused it for Arthur.

Rather than address any of that, Arthur merely recalled cautionary words his father had once spoken to him in what seemed, now, to be a fit of irony. "Pride goes before the fall. At least you know that now."

Merlin looked up and gave him a quizzical look, as if he didn't recognize the phrase.

"The sin of pride? It's from the new god's teachings," Arthur prompted. "The angels that surrounded him in the heavens fell victim to their own pride and fell to the pits of Hades, stripped of their father's love and regard. It's meant to be a warning to man, not to take the same path of pride." When that elicited no recognition, Arthur squinted at him. "How do you know nothing of the god of Camelot? The chapel at the castle? With the cross? The Christ man?"

Merlin merely stared blankly back. "I didn't realize that was a god."

"You…Merlin, seriously?"

Defensive, Merlin insisted, "It's just empty rooms. Do you have to do a ritual to see him there?"

Arthur experienced a sudden insight, then – something he didn't think would have occurred to him a year ago. "He's not a magic god. His followers eschew magic – their god doesn't come from it, and they abhor it. It's what drew my father to him. And you – you can't sense him at all, can you? The Christ man? When you look at the chapel and the artifacts, there's nothing there."

Merlin swallowed, a sickly and convulsive gesture, and looked away. "Is that your god too?"

Arthur shook his head, his mouth softening, and felt the lines smoothing away from his brow. "No, Merlin. I never saw anything but empty rooms in there either. Seemed pointless to keep going back."

Merlin looked up, his face open in a way it rarely was anymore. A tiny hint of a smile graced his lips, but it was a sad thing. "You're magic," he said. "Like me."

It was an odd thing to say, in Arthur's mind. He was nothing like Merlin – there was no magic in him that he'd ever seen. "Am I?" Then he tried not to frown, because it occurred to him that Merlin may be implying something that Arthur had been trying to parse for years. "I was born of magic. You lied."

Merlin swallowed again, and his eyes shuttered. Perhaps unconsciously, he leaned away from Arthur too. "You were going to kill your father."

"Was that really my mother?" Arthur demanded. "In Morgause's spell?"

"No." Merlin forced the word out on a gust of unwavering breath. "No, Arthur – what she conjured was an illusion. It wasn't your mother. She _did_ trick you."

"But it was true, just the same." Arthur leaned away too now. "The things she said."

Merlin watched him the way deer stare at a crossbow from close up. "Yes. It was true."

This probably should have angered him, but some part of Arthur had known that already – he had seen it in the desperation on his father's face when he looked up at his son, and found Arthur's eyes as unyielding as the sword tip angled at his throat. "You're certain of it?"

Merlin nodded, still wary but less so as he realized that Arthur wasn't going to react much beyond words.

"Well." Arthur smoothed a hand down his horse's neck watched his ears flick in response. "Seems it's been an afternoon for revelations."

Merlin merely watched him, apparently waiting for the rage or the excoriations he thought must be coming.

"It's getting dark. We need to get to camp before they send a search party to look for us." Arthur turned his horse in a circle and sucked in a breath to call out for his knights, but something stayed his tongue. A shiver prickled over the surface of Arthur's skin and he went still. Sensing its rider's sudden tension, his horse did the same. "Where are Percival and Caradoc?"

Merlin's horse plodded a careful circle around Arthur's, and Arthur looked over to where Merlin sat in the saddle, his eyes focused unnaturally sharp on the trees around them. He seemed to be looking at something other than the surrounding forest, and for an instant, his irises flashed amber. "You remember how I warned you about bandits?"

Arthur rubbed his tongue against the backs of his teeth. "Are you going to say that you told me so?"

"No," Merlin replied with forced levity. "Pretty sure it's Saxons. An actual hoard, too."

"Basically the same thing then." Arthur poked his toe into the flank of Merlin's horse without looking away from the forest. "Come on. We need more men." He started off toward the plains surrounding Nemeton, expecting Merlin to follow as usual.

Merlin's voice stopped him. "They're that way too." He tipped his head, and his horse sidestepped without warning. Merlin lurched in the saddle and then said something in a strange language to his horse to still her. "Either Caradoc or Percival made it to the others. They're coming. But we're pretty much surrounded already."

"How do you – no, never mind. Not important now." Arthur spun his horse in a tight circle, preternaturally aware of the forest falling abruptly silent all around them. "What are you doing?"

"Calling the hunting dogs."

Arthur glanced over at him, eyes wide, and then the silence was broken by the baying of a hound. It was closer to them than Arthur would have guessed. Soon after, a dozen more dogs joined the call, and then a horse whinnied in the woods. Arthur spun to look back the way they had come in time to hear someone give an angry shout, and then an arrow whizzed past his ear. "Merlin, down!"

"They're everywhere." He said it far too calmly – unlike Merlin's normal voice at all.

Without acknowledging that, Arthur rolled out of the saddle and then reached up to pull Merlin off of his horse too. He dropped Merlin in an indignant heap on the ground and then grabbed both horses' bridles. "Stay between the horses." The baying in the woods grew louder as the dogs drew near, and Arthur freed his sword. "Merlin! Get up, and stay between the horses!" He wrenched at Merlin's sleeve and dragged him upright, then pressed him against one of the horses, shielding them both as best he could.

Merlin latched a hand onto Arthur's leather pauldron as if to anchor them together, but Arthur could tell that Merlin's actual aim was to bodily protect his back – shield him in the literal sense. There wasn't time to debate Merlin's willingness to just die like that, draped over Arthur like a cape, but he seethed anyway. He didn't like it – he had never liked it. But it warmed some dark part of his heart all the same, to be so loved without thought.

The sound of panicking horses came next, dozens stamping and snorting in the trees as the hounds overran them and burst through to scramble around Arthur and Merlin, snarling and baying in an artificial frenzy. It was unnatural, the way they acted – the ferocity and mindlessness inherent in being controlled this way by magic. Arthur made a point not to look too closely at them, lest the sight disturb him enough to do something to the man covering his back to stop it all. "I don't suppose you have any convenient rockfalls up your sleeve?"

Merlin's fingers dug more tightly into his shoulder. "All of the rocks here are in the ground already."

"Trees? Can you knock over trees? You do that innocent falling branch thing – I've seen you."

"Hold still."

"I can't hold still, Merlin, we're being attacked!" The dogs were now snapping at anything in reach, including their own horses, and the beasts jostled them both, crushed them between for a moment as they tried to rear to get away from the teeth at their ankles. Arthur struggled to hold both sets of reigns and keep them in place. "Merlin, the dogs! Call off the dogs!"

Rather than doing that, Merlin extended his free hand over Arthur's shoulder, palm down, and hissed, " _Bene læg gesweorc_!"

Arthur jolted hard at the feeling of those words in his ear and the flare of old lightening that invaded his nostrils, saturating the air around them. His breath caught for a thrilling moment, and then a thick mist began to rise up from the ground. Arthur's breath exploded from his lungs in an unexpected panic but he forced down his immediate reaction, which sadly was to swing his sword around to cut the threat from off his own back. Merlin gasped once in Arthur's ear, turned his hand over, and the fog billowed up more quickly, impenetrable. Beyond the edge of the growing cloud, Saxons began pouring out of the trees to race toward them, some on foot and some on horseback. Arthur set his stance and let go of the horses. "They've already seen us."

The dogs scattered both of their horses and then fell to tearing across the ground to snap at the ankles of their attackers. It was an awful sight – savage and sick and mindless – as the dogs threw themselves beneath hooves and kept gnawing at screaming mens' ankles even after being run through by Saxon swords. The moment the fog finally closed up and around all of them seemed a blessing, as at least Arthur didn't need to endure the sight of it anymore. He took the opportunity to wrench both of them in a random direction, away from where the Saxons had last seen them standing. Not a moment later, a sword sliced down through the air where Arthur's head had been, and Merlin stumbled as the tip grazed his leg before Arthur could drag him far enough away.

"Up, Merlin. Up!"

The fog parted on a Saxon, and they both froze, each just as surprised as the other.

"Down, Merlin!" Arthur swung, and though the Saxon snapped out of his shock quickly enough to parry the first blow, he couldn't evade the second.

At Arthur's feet, Merlin shouted, "Up, Merlin. Down, Merlin. Which is it?!"

"If you could duck like a normal person, this wouldn't be an issue!"

"Oh, sod off!" Merlin produced a knife from somewhere and stabbed it into the foot of the next Saxon who found them, allowing Arthur plenty of time to dispatch him.

From off in the woods, a faint cry of _To the King!_ reached Arthur's ears. Without thought, Arthur shouted back, "Here! To me! To me!"

"What are you doing?!" Merlin grabbed at Arthur's belt in time to drag him to his knees and avoid a nasty attempt at beheading.

Arthur reversed his sword and jabbed up as the Saxon tripped and fell down, impaling himself. After tipping the dying man over, Arthur yanked his sword out and launched himself forward into the fog.

"Arthur!" Merlin's fingers couldn't find purchase and Arthur felt them slide off the smooth, unyielding surface of his leather armor. The sound of Merlin thumping face first into the ground followed, but Arthur knew that he was fine, just overbalanced from grabbing after Arthur.

"Knights of Camelot! To me!" Arthur sliced wildly through the fog with his sword, blindly connecting here and there as he bobbed and weaved in the hope of avoiding Saxon blades that were doing the same thing.

 _"Protect the King!"_

Arthur recognized Lord Howel's voice from within the chaotic din of a battle fought blind. "Here! On me!" A dark shape began to materialize from the fog in front of him and Arthur swung as hard as he could. He realized his mistake too late as he heard the thunk of sword sinking into wood, jarring his arms painfully at the abrupt impact. Arthur gaped at the tree for a bare moment, and then wrenched at his sword, but it was stuck fast in the trunk. "Dammit!" After another fruitless attempt to free his weapon, Arthur abandoned it and ducked down to crab-walk as fast as he could away from the tree, ears straining for any sound that may betray an attacker bearing down on him. He felt along the ground as he scrambled through the pine needles and leaf litter coating the forest floor, hoping to come up against a weapon he could appropriate.

"Arthur!"

"Merlin, stay where you are!" Not that he expected the idiot to listen; Merlin never did. Arthur kept moving across the ground, and finally, his hands brushed over the dull blade of a sword. He snatched it out of the dirt, spun around, and just as he was about to push back to his feet, a body careened into him.

Arthur shouted at the force of the impact, and then couldn't inhale again as the Saxon rolled right over him. Arthur slammed into the ground at an angle hard enough to crack his shoulder but thankfully not dislocate it, though it felt as if he jarred his neck pretty badly. His head swam and the sound of the surrounding battle faded out for a long moment, his heartbeat loud in his ears, pulling everything slow like molasses across his vision. He felt someone tug him over onto his back. His vision wouldn't sharpen, though, and he felt thin and disconnected, like a battle standard torn from its flagpole, born lazily on the wind kicked up in the wake of armies. Arthur's throat clicked and the fog swam over his sight, forming and dispersing like ghosts, or faces he knew. Pale hues and a blue dress sewn with flowers. Arthur's lips silently formed Guinevere's name, and he wondered if he'd been wounded. If this were it. There were so many things he still needed to do. But he couldn't breathe in. He couldn't breathe. Guinevere looked like she wanted to cry, her mouth forming words that Arthur couldn't see on her lips.

Suddenly, the moment broke, and Arthur filled his lungs with a painful gasp, harsh and sheer like cliff faces. Men shouted all around him, Camelot's knights now in the middle of the fray, fully engaged, and – "Guinevere!"

"Forgive him. Arthur, forgive him. You have to forgive him; he won't forgive himself."

Arthur struggled over onto his stomach and pulled himself toward her – toward the pale, shimmering illusion of her – still struggling to catch his breath and clear the fuzz from his head. "Guinevere – " He tried to keep up with her, but she wasn't standing still. The fog took her with it as it moved, pulled her away, receded. "Forgive him for what?"

"I love you, Arthur. With all my heart."

"Guinevere!"

Someone wailed out a terrible sound, and Arthur only realized that it was Merlin when it resolved into a shredded howl of Arthur's name. And then several things seemed to happen all at once. A gust of wind tore the fog to pieces, but Arthur hardly noticed for the single jolt of the ground beneath him, as if something snapped deep in the bedrock. The air crackled with magic, a burn on the air, and Arthur watched the hair stand up on the back of his hand. His scalp tingled, the hair on his head likely doing the same just before a clap of air concussed its way through all of the men now on display in the absence of the fog. As if a cave entrance had collapsed, a shower of debris blew outwards hard enough to knock a grown man down. It jostled everyone, including Arthur where he lay like a starfish on his belly, and tossed any Saxon still standing to the ground. Most of them lurched right back to their feet, but they didn't press their attack – indeed, they shoved each other backwards, faces white, while many turned and simply fled.

The compression of air against Arthur's chest forced a whimper out of him, though it was more fear than hurt; he wasn't ashamed to admit that. Over his shoulder, perhaps thirty yards away, he could see Merlin crouched on the balls of his feet with one hand fisted into the dirt and the other stretched toward Arthur. But his eyes were fixed over Arthur's head, which was the exact moment when Arthur realized that there was a Saxon stood over him ready to deal a killing blow.

It never came.

The ground writhed beneath Arthur's stomach and he shouted, shoving himself back and scrabbling to find something to stand on that wasn't the actual ground. Tree roots burst from the forest floor, and men began shrieking as they caught at legs, tripped and grasped and twined like the vines that climbed and wrapped so tightly as to strangle entire trees to death. Dozens of men fell, and even as many others ran into the woods, their cries echoed back as they failed to get far enough away to escape. The cracks of broken limbs sounded out like tree branches snapping in storms, bone and wood no different in that moment. Even the screams could have been mistaken for the shrill shriek of a tree splitting in two amidst a crack of thunder.

Arthur's legs felt like jelly. All he could manage to do was put his back to a boulder and brace himself there on the balls of his feet, shaking in spite of his best efforts as he watched the man who almost killed him hack with his sword at the roots wrapped around his shin. He staggered as his foot disappeared into the forest floor with a sickening crack of snapped bone, and finally lost his balance. As his hands impacted the ground, vines shot up to pin them down, pull and bend fingers the wrong way as it dragged him wrist deep into the earth. He choked and finally screamed as the vines climbed his forearms, cinching into skin and cutting sinew like paper, painting his skin red. Tree roots wound up his legs and over his back. To his credit, he fought not to be bent to the ground, but it wasn't a fight he could have won. His arms gave out and his elbows bent under the pressure until he was breathing in more dirt than air. He stared at Arthur with bulging eyes as he choked, knowing that he would die like this, buried alive in the mud.

Merlin appeared then in Arthur's periphery, hands curled into loose cups at his sides. He seemed to be shivering, fine tremors running down his legs to destabilize his gait. Blood soaked his trouser leg where he'd been sliced open, but he didn't seem to notice the wound. His hands shook, loose as they hung from his arms. Arthur tried to swallow but couldn't manage to compress his throat past the lump that seemed to have formed there. Merlin's face wasn't anything that Arthur recognized at first; he seemed barely human at all. It wasn't madness like what showed on Morgana's face toward the end; it was…nothing. It was like the goddess on the lake, a perfect unfeeling light. As if Merlin weren't even there, peering out of his own amber-stricken eyes. It was the single most terrifying thing that Arthur had ever seen.

The Saxon couldn't raise his head to look at Merlin; he could only stare at the old, tattered leather boot planted a few feet from his nose. It seemed that the strange growth and movement of the forest stopped for a heartbeat – long enough for Merlin to audibly struggle to catch his breath. His hands clenched and released, and Arthur watched him set his legs to stop his knees from buckling.

The Saxon squirmed and struggled to breathe at his feet, choking on muck and unable to do more than twitch at the agony of strangling tree roots and broken bones. He was gasping something that remained trapped behind the constriction of vines around his throat. Saliva and blood mixed to drool from his mouth, his face gradually darkening in a purplish hue. Even as Arthur watched, his lips bulged and the tiny veins around his nostrils bruised. He was begging, Arthur realized with a jolt. He was begging for his life.

Thick with mucous and something terribly close to unfeeling, Merlin sniffed and then said, voice choppy as it faded and caught on the way out, "You should not have tried to kill my king." Then he slashed his quaking fingers over the man and watched, stone silent and unmoving, as the relentless tightening of the tree root finally snapped the Saxon's back and dragged him underground with all of the rest.

The perfect quiet that followed was obscene. Arthur struggled to breathe without passing out, his heart racing out of control in his chest. In front of him, Merlin breathed wet and ragged, the loudest thing in the forest in that moment, as the glow of magic faded from his eyes. No one who remained alive seemed capable of moving yet, their collective fear a palpable thing swimming in the dusky breeze. Insect and bird sounds rose up around them again as if nothing untoward had happened – as if dozens of men had not just been swallowed by the earth, no trace left to even show the disturbance of the dirt beneath their feet. A cool autumnal breeze blew through the aftermath, thick with the scent of fallen leaves and dogs' blood from the destruction of an entire kennel's worth of hunting hounds. It rustled the smaller trees, knocking twigs gently together in a clicking canopy as leaves wafted through the air, detached from the limbs above. Merlin staggered in place and then sank to his knees where the last Saxon had disappeared.

Arthur gaped like a fish over the air he continued to suck down. He didn't think that he had ever seen Merlin kill before, not like that. He knew that he'd done it, he'd watched him ram a sword into Morgana's stomach out of terror and grief, but this was…different. Arthur had always looked at Merlin and seen a clumsy, smiling oaf. A caring friend. An absent-minded and lonely man trying his best and knowing he may have failed. This was not that. Arthur had actually thought that Merlin killed the same way he smiled, soft and sad, and helpless to stop it. With some kind of fated compassion. Not like this.

Dizzy from breathing too hard, Arthur finally tore his eyes away from Merlin to take stock of the forest around him. To see how many men he had lost of the twenty knights who accompanied the hunting party. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing – that all of the men of Camelot stood before him unharmed, while none of the Saxons remained. Arthur sucked in a breath that threatened to turn into something undignified, let it out, and then drew in another. Motion caught in the corner of his eye and Arthur flinched, but it was only Merlin convulsively scrubbing his palms against his pant legs in a pointless effort to clean the dirt off.

Because Arthur was staring so intently, he also caught the exact moment when Merlin's false calm broke. There was a briefly held breath, and Merlin blinked a few times. Then he twitched, and Arthur watched him raise his head to realize that he was surrounded by knights of Camelot. That they had all seen what he did. Merlin's chest heaved in an attempt at what Arthur assumed was panic, but then he just started shaking his head and let his composure crack. "I'm – I'm s-s-s – I'm – "

The attempt at words acted as a catalyst. Sir Erec broke first with an enraged shout of, "Sorcerer!" and sprang forward.

"No!" Arthur shoved off from the boulder but we could see that he wouldn't be fast enough.

A blur shot across the gully from their right, and Gwaine slammed into Sir Erec with enough force to bounce them both off of one tree and roll them into another. Arthur lunged at Merlin and grabbed him by the armpit, fully aware that he was gripping too hard, using too much force, but he couldn't quite shake what he had just seen enough to be gentle right now. Arthur had no sword, but he dragged Merlin against him anyway, all but dangling him there on his knees, prepared to block anyone who challenged him with nothing more than his bare hands if he had to. Unexpectedly, Merlin gripped him back with both hands, one around Arthur's forearm and the other around his leg, and something about that desperate grasp helped to dispel the horror and the frantic rush of what he had just witnessed. He looked down to where Merlin had pressed his face into Arthur's thigh, swallowing repeatedly as if trying not to be ill.

Off to the side, Gwaine swept around and pinned Sir Erec down by the throat, a boot knife sharp in his other hand. "Stay down." Thankfully, Erec decided not to resist.

A few feet away, Lord Howel started, "Sire – "

"No one touches Merlin." Arthur set his feet wider, not sure if he really intended to take on twenty knights, unarmed, or if they would truly try to go through their own king to get at Merlin.

Lord Howel persisted, though. "He's a sorcerer. We all saw him, sire."

It was Percival, unexpectedly, who snapped back, "Yes, and he just saved your life." He bent down to retrieve his sword, and though he looked rather pale, he nodded to Arthur and walked over to yank Excalibur out of the tree it was caught in.

Arthur tensed in spite of himself as Percival drew near, but he relaxed when offered back his sword. "Percival."

Percival inclined his head back. "Sire."

As if spite of himself, Caradoc breathed through the uneasy silence, "There were well over fifty men."

Sir Ronhael, stood at the farther edge of the gathering of Camelot's knights, stared transfixed over his shoulder at the open plains of Nemeton beyond the tree line. "More. The whole camp. He took out the whole Saxon camp."

Merlin shivered against Arthur's leg and detached a hand in favor of curling to cover his mouth with it. His fingers obscured the already near-inaudible wail of words. "I didn't mean to kill them all." He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that Arthur could make out the gleam of tears pressed out from the corners.

"Merlin did what he had to," Arthur asserted, "at great risk to himself." Shamefully, his voice sounded unconvincing in his own ears. His palms were sweating too, and he had to adjust his grip on his sword to keep it firm "The Saxons outnumbered us. They would have killed us all."

Howel replied harshly, "Then he should have a charitable death in light of his actions for the crown."

Arthur bared his teeth. "I said no."

"He is still a sorcerer," Howel insisted, his expression cold. "One good deed cannot erase that."

"One," Arthur echoed. " _One_ good deed. You have no idea what you owe him, _my lord_. Exactly how many good deeds does he need to earn your pardon? I'm sure he can accommodate you."

"Arthur."

Arthur glanced at Percival, prepared to spout off here too in defense of a man who should die by Arthur's own laws. There was no castigation there, however; of course there wasn't. Percival had more sense than that. Arthur shut his eyes briefly and acknowledged the gentle rebuke as it was intended. Then he tipped his head to regard the heap of a man trembling at his feet, as unlike the sorcerer of a moment ago as night was from day. "Get up, Merlin."

Merlin made no effort to assist Arthur in getting himself upright, but Arthur managed to yank him onto unsteady feet anyway. As soon as he had to support his own weight, though, Merlin's knees bent and Arthur had to slow his collapse right back down. Exasperation boiled up in Arthur's gut, along with a simmering rage that a sorcerer – _any_ sorcerer – should embarrass him like this while Arthur was trying to figure out how to salvage this wreck.

Arthur unhanded Merlin entirely at that point, possibly more disgusted at his own anger than at Merlin gulping in air where he lay crumpled on the ground on the verge of vomiting. Of their own volition, words bubbled up in Arthur's throat, and he found himself suddenly shouting, "Stop being so bloody useless!"

A dozen pairs of eyes fixed on Arthur in varying degrees of surprise and reprimand. Even Howel appeared taken aback, and his stance shifted to something less confrontational even as he glanced at Merlin trying not to heave on the ground.

Arthur flushed and took a step back, breathing hard. Now, when it was all over – when he needed a level head – _now_ his body decided to panic. His voice heavy with apologies, Arthur said, "Merlin…"

Merlin cringed away from him, shook his head, choked in a ragged breath, and then seemed to dissolve right there at everyone's feet. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."

A soft crunch of pine needles foretold Caradoc's approach, and even though Arthur should have kept everyone back, something told him not to hinder Caradoc. "Ah, lad." Caradoc let out a heavy sigh and dropped to one knee beside Merlin. "A man's first kill in battle is always the hardest to accept."

Merlin let out a wet gasp and just kept shaking his head, as if he could take it all back if he just denied reality hard enough. "It's not the first," he whispered, high and tight.

Caradoc licked his lips, opened his mouth to deliver some better platitude, but evidently, he didn't have one. He let his breath back out unused, and then just looked up at Arthur as if he expected help from that quarter. Arthur didn't have any platitudes either; he was certain that had he been alone at the end of this, he would be fighting the urge to be sick too.

Up on a small rise, Sir Marwen glanced away from the rest of them, thought hard for a moment, and then pointedly sheathed his sword. "What are we going to do?" He cast an expectant look around the irregular group of knights. "Hm? Look at him." He pointed at Merlin, who remained oblivious to most of what was going on around him while Caradoc kindly rubbed circles on his back, much like a father might do to his broken son. "That's a sorcerer. Is that what we're all so afraid of? Bumbling Merlin? The man who cleans our scrapes and mucks the stables, and lets us tease him even though he could do _that_ to us anytime he wants?" He swept an arm out to encompass the forest, and the plains beyond. "The man who keeps our king safe from things we can't fight – that's what we need to destroy? Tch." Marwen shook his head and stalked around the gathering to where Gwaine still threatened to shove a knife into Erec's throat. "Let him up, Gwaine. He won't do anything."

Gwaine took a long moment to consider the man pinned beneath him, and then relented with a sneer. But he took the time to hiss, "Touch him and I'll come for you. I promise."

Erec remained on the ground, carefully still, until Gwaine actually moved away. Then he rolled to his feet and grabbed his sword in a fit of mostly impotent anger. "Sorcery is outlawed. There is a reason they need to be culled – look! Look around – see what he did! You're right, Sir Marwen. He could do that to any of us whenever he likes."

"Oh, come off it," Gwaine snapped.

"What does he want? Power? Influence? He's been using us! For years! Playing the fool, smiling like an idiot – and all the while, he has intimate access to our king. Do we even know what he does to Arthur when no one is looking?"

Arthur went rigid and pointed his sword in Erec's direction. "Mind whose honor you're impugning."

Undeterred, Erec pressed, "Your father taught you better than this – they _killed_ your _mother_. How could you be so blind? Would you know it, if he's planting ideas in your mind? If he's enchanted you? I bet he wouldn't even have to use sorcery to do it; you dote on him. That's probably his plan – ingratiate himself, make you like him, wear down your suspicion, and then all he'd have to do is ask and you'd fold like day-old laundry."

Arthur grit his teeth. "Mark your words, Sir Erec. I may not let you take them back."

"We all know he shares your bed," Erec bit out. "Any whore knows that's the best time to gain favors from the nobleman she fucks."

All Arthur saw in that moment was red, but he lunged too late; several hands snared at him and managed to hold him back, but Arthur could still spit, and he did. He missed his mark, but at least it prompted Erec to step back to avoid a better shot.

Erec curled his lip at the spectacle that Arthur was making. "Our mighty king," he mocked. "See what your pet sorcerer has made of you. And you can't even see it."

"I won't have a knight who insults members of my household!"

"I've done no more insulting of your household than you have," Erec shot back. "What would your Queen think? Do you have him right in the same marriage bed you built for her?"

Finally, Lord Howel appeared to choose a side, and it wasn't the one Arthur might have expected. He turned to Sir Erec and said softly, "That is uncalled for. Arthur is your king. He has always conducted himself with discretion. You don't have to agree with every decision he makes, but you do have to respect them, and him." He glanced uneasily to Arthur, and from there to Merlin before going back to Erec. "Obviously, our king has his reasons for keeping a sorcerer close. What just happened here should be evidence enough of his usefulness." He sucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as if the words left behind a foul taste. "And I would imagine that as far as which of them has control of the other…it does not appear to be Merlin who commands here."

Arthur seethed, aware that he continued holding himself with so much tension that Percival, Gwaine, and Caradoc still hadn't unhanded him. With a deep, shuddering breath, he forced himself to unwind, and then shook off the restraining grips. "Sir Erec, I will give you one chance to apologize for your comments."

"You can keep your chance." Erec flared his nostrils. "I'll not serve a king such as you." He sneered at Merlin, looked at Arthur with disappointment, and said, "Your father would be ashamed of you." Then turned his back on them all.

"Treason," someone murmured. "Erec, that's treason."

Caradoc gripped Arthur's shoulder as much in support as to caution him to keep his temper in check. "Let him go. He'll soon see there's no use for a traitor out there."

Erec paused, hackles raised, but he thought better of turning back and let the insult lie. As he passed through the ranks of knights, however, three others broke off from the group and followed him, though they were more subdued about their desertion. Arthur breathed hard through his mouth as he watched them go, betrayal singing in his veins. He had known, though – he had known that magic wouldn't be accepted back so easily. It still stung, and his pride felt the blow somewhere fragile where he had no real defense against it. He had thought better of them, and he shouldn't have.

No one moved until long after the footfalls of their sundered brothers faded into the night. Then Gwaine said, "They might go back to Camelot."

Arthur's shoulders sagged as the tension finally bled out. "It will take them at least a day without their horses." He smeared a hand down his face and took his first good, deep breath in what felt like hours. "If we leave at first light, we'll be back well before them."

"I'm willing to go tonight," Caradoc offered, "with a couple of volunteers. We can reach the gates by dawn and warn the guard. They won't be allowed through, and we can make sure that no one entertains their stories."

Percival nodded. "I'll go with you."

As much as Arthur thought he could probably trust Caradoc to actually do what he said, Percival's inclusion set him far more at ease. He knew beyond a doubt that Percival would remain true.

Ronhael put up his hand too. "I can't stay here overnight; this wood is cursed now. I'll go too."

A general grumble worked its way through the remaining knights, and then Arthur held up a hand to call them to attention. "You should know that I understand. This is…" He glanced down at Merlin, who seemed to have gained control of his stomach but not the shaking. He seemed intent on examining the ground between his splayed hands. "…frightening. Sorcery is frightening. I'm…uncertain how to go about this, but… You should know that this is not how I intended anyone find out. I am…ashamed to say that I let my temper get the best of me just now. I could have handled this better. This is…" He tried to come up with the right words, stately words for his men, to galvanize them to his will and instill in them the confidence they may have lost just now. But in the end, all Arthur could do was drop his hands, sigh at the early evening sky, and be honest. "Merlin isn't a threat to Camelot, and certainly not to me. What happened here was horrific. None of us will forget this. But we must never speak of it to anyone, after this day. I'm – my laws aren't perfect. My father… There were reasons… I'm not making any sense here."

It was Lord Howel, again, who said the unexpected. "If anyone learns that Merlin is a sorcerer, he'll be killed." He turned slightly so that he could address the gathered knights rather than just Arthur. "And our king doesn't want that to happen. Are we loyal to our king?"

It was slow to come, but come it did: a chorus of _aye_ 's, no matter how subdued.

"Then we know what we must do," Howel finished. He looked to Arthur again. "We keep the king's counsel."

Arthur gazed back as heads bobbed in agreement, wondering what, exactly, had changed Howel's mind. He was older and set in his ways, and very much Uther's man. As Arthur nodded in turn, though, he wondered more if this alliance could really be trusted at all. If it were him, Arthur thought that he might bide his time in just this manner, assuming that Merlin would probably kill anyone who crossed Arthur openly. And he would, Arthur realized, his skin going cold as he finally, after all of these years, absorbed the full implications of what Merlin did in the shadows to keep Arthur safe. He absolutely would find a way to destroy anyone who threatened Arthur.

An uneasy murmur rose up amongst the men, but it didn't crest in the range of hearing. Arthur waited for them to start milling around retrieving fallen weapons before he allowed himself to relax just a fraction and regard the man bent in half at his feet. "Merlin. Come on, we need to get to camp."

Merlin jerked, and seemed to come back to himself in a rush. He swallowed hard, looked around a bit, and then allowed Arthur to shove a shoulder up under his arm to help him stand. "I wasn't thinking."

Arthur cast him a silent look from the corner of his eye, then elected to just ignore that. "Your leg is bleeding."

"Oh." Merlin wobbled on his feet and looked down at his calf where the Saxon blade had sliced clear through to the bone. "That's why it hurts."

"Can you fix it?" Arthur gestured at the wound with his free hand.

Merlin nodded. "I have thread and bandages with the luggage cart. George probably unpacked it already."

Arthur fought the urge to unkindly roll his eyes. "No, can you _fix it._ Now. It's a long enough walk to the cold spring without us having to carry you."

Merlin blinked a few times, glanced at the suddenly unmoving knights as if he weren't actually looking at them, and then bent down to cover the shredded skin with the hand not draped over Arthur's shoulders. " _Þurhhæle licsar min_."

Most of the knights jumped and cursed at the flare of magic, and Merlin shrank against Arthur's side. The smell of singed flesh wafted up and then dispersed, and Merlin stamped his foot a few times as if to restore the feeling to the abused limb.

"Good," Arthur said. He glared around at the nervously circling men, an open challenge to either accept what they'd seen or face Arthur now. A few seemed to force themselves to subside, but the rest merely finished their scouting of the battle site and then made ready to leave.

The walk back to camp was tense and quiet, to say the least.

~tbc~


End file.
